“Just as you, Judah and Israel, have been a curse among the nations, so I will save you, and you will be a blessing.  Do not be afraid, but let your hands be strong.”  (Zechariah 8:13)

Israel welcomed with open arms a 12-year-old victim of the Syrian conflict after his brother transported him on a donkey from Damascus to an Israeli military base on Mount Hermon last weekend.

A mortar strike on their home near Damascus blinded the pre-teen and injured his leg and arms.

The boy was first treated in a Lebanese hospital where his right hand was amputated before he was sent home.  Fighting prevented him from reaching his house, so his brother decided to reroute him to Israel for more care.

The IDF evacuated the brothers by air to Ziv Medical Center, in Safed, Israel.

Medical personnel there have been working hard to save the sight in one of the 12-year-old’s eyes, with the other eye “irreversibly blind,” according to Maor.

He is the 358th Syrian—and about the 50th Syrian child—to receive medical care at the center, which serves patients in need no matter their loyalty.

“We don’t check where they’re from,” said Ziv Medical Center spokesman Gil Maor.  “We are a hospital.  If someone comes in an ambulance to us for treatment, we take them.”

About 1,200 medical refugees from Syria have been treated in Israel so far.  (Jspace)

“After nearly three full years of active fighting against the regime [of Syrian President Bashar Assad], the rebel-controlled areas tend to suffer from lack of supplies, medicine, and have seen the return of polio in addition to mass human displacement and loss of property,” Tel Aviv University researcher Joel Parker told the Jerusalem Post.

Because Syria and Israel are officially enemies, the IDF has assisted Israel’s Syrian patients to return home quietly after their treatment, in a way that minimizes the potential to draw negative attention among their Syrian neighbors.

The World Health Organization warned Friday that Ebola virus cases in West Africa are rising faster than the ability to contain them.  Of 4,784 cases, more than 2,400 people have died.  WHO director general Margaret Chan noted the figures could be an underestimate.

Syria is not the only country Israel is actively helping medically.

The Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced that Israel will join international efforts to stop the spread of Eloba in Africa.  Currently Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Senegal are experiencing the largest outbreak of Ebola in history.

Last Sunday, two Israeli doctors, Dr. Roee Singer from the Ministry of Health and Dr. Pnina Shitrit, a senior physician at Meir Hospital’s infectious diseases department, went to Cameroon to share infection prevention methods at a week-long professional program.  (JP)

Argaman, a Jerusalem based company, has also invented a new bio-inhibitive fabric that may stop the spread of infections and reduce the risk of health care workers spreading infection from patient to patient or to themselves.

Protective suits and decontamination spray help prevent the spread of Ebola to health care workers.

Although the fabric has not yet been tested against Ebola, Jeffery Gabbay, the company’s CEO said that at least one healthcare NGO has approached the company about providing protective masks and gloves for health care workers.

Gabbay hopes to eventually design full-body suits to protect heath care workers in epidemic scenarios.

“Everybody touching Ebola should be outfitted with our highly anti-viral fabric from head to toe,” he stressed.

On Friday, the World Health Organization (WHO) warned that the number of new Ebola cases is now growing faster that the ability of health officials to handle them.

“In the three hardest hit countries, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, the number of new cases is moving far faster than the capacity to manage them in the Ebola-specific treatment centers,” said Margaret Chan, the WHO director-general.  “Today, there is not one single bed available for the treatment of an Ebola patient in the entire country of Liberia.”

Of the 4,784 people so far infected with Ebola, more than 2,400 have died.

“I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.”  (Genesis 12:2)