Salmonella

• On Oct. 17, 2023, news broke that at least 500 patients, staff and people seeking shelter from Israeli bombs had been killed in an explosion at a hospital, according to health authorities in the Hamas-run enclave.
• It amounts to a devastating loss of life during a campaign of bombing that has not spared the frail or sick.
• Insufficiently and poorly resourced for decades, doctors and hospitals also had to contend with the devastating effects of a 16-year blockade imposed by Israel, in part with coordination with Egypt.

A system completely overwhelmed

• Hospitals in Gaza are completely overwhelmed.
• They are seeing around 1,000 new patients per day, in a health system with only 2,500 hospital beds for a population of over 2 million people.
• People maimed in the bombing are being treated for horrific injuries without basics such as gauze dressings, antiseptic, IV bags and painkillers.
• The U.N. estimates this fuel will run out any day due to a complete siege placed on Gaza by Israel.

A century of underfunding

• But Gaza’s health care system was already under stress before the latest bombardment.
• In fact, policies that stretch back decades have left it unable to meet even the basic health needs of Gaza’s residents, let alone respond to the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe.
• What each have had in common is that, from my perspective as a global health expert, they invested little in Palestinian health.
• For periods of the 20th century, the health priorities of successive governing bodies appeared focused more on reducing the spread of communicable disease to protect foreigners interacting with the native Palestinian population.

Dying before they can leave

• Since then, chronic underfunding of public hospitals has meant that Palestinians in Gaza have remained reliant on outside money and nongovernmental organizations for essential health services.
• During the passage of the Oslo Accords in the mid-1990s, the Palestinian Authority was established to administer services in the occupied territories.
• The Palestinian Authority received a significant influx of humanitarian aid as it took on civil responsibilities, including health.
• As a result, health indicators for Palestinians, including life expectancy and immunization rates, started to improve in the late 1990s.

Gaza health services after the siege

• This vulnerable health system is now facing unprecedented challenges, staffed by health professionals who have committed to stay with their patients even under hospital evacuation orders and at risk of death.
• It is uncertain what the health system of Gaza will look like in the future.
• Already at least 28 doctors and other health workers have been killed in Gaza, with ambulances and a number of hospitals rendered useless by the bombs.

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Every year, around 2.4 million people in the UK get food poisoning – mostly from viral or bacterial contamination. Most people recover within a few days without treatment, but not all are that lucky. As a microbiologist, I’m probably more acutely aware of the risk of food-borne infections than most. Here are some of the things I look out for.

Eating outdoors

• I rarely eat alfresco – whether picnics or barbecues – as the risk of food poisoning goes up when food is taken outdoors.
• You can use alcohol hand gels (they’re better than nothing), but they don’t kill all germs.
• For barbecues, meat needs to be thoroughly cooked, and a meat thermometer is a good investment to avoid food poisoning.

Buffets

• Contamination comes from buffet visitors touching food, and germs can be sprayed on to buffets from people sneezing or coughing close to the food.
• The problem is buffets tend to be laid out before you arrive, so it is difficult to tell if the platters of cooked meat, seafood, salads, desserts and appetisingly arranged fruit and vegetables will have been sitting for more than two hours when you come to eat them.
• For hot buffets, such as those served at breakfast in hotels, I always avoid lukewarm food, as bacteria that cause food poisoning can grow quickly when food is kept at less than 60℃.

Oysters

• There are some foods I never eat, and raw shellfish, such as oysters, is one of them.
• This is because oysters are filter feeders and can concentrate germs, such as Vibrio and norovirus, in their tissue.

Bagged salads

• I never eat bagged salads, largely because one of my research areas is fresh salad safety.
• It has been found that bagged lettuce can contain food poisoning germs such as E coli, Salmonella and Listeria.

Cooking practices

• In terms of cooking practices, I have a list of dos and don’ts.
• One of my “never do” practices is reheating cooked rice.
• Although the Bacillus cells are killed by cooking, the spores survive.

Dining out

• I never collect “doggy bags” of food leftovers (they have usually exceeded the two-hour time limit), even if they really are intended for a pet.
• The benefits of being a microbiologist are that we know how to avoid food poisoning and, in return, people have confidence our cooking is very safe to eat.