The Sourasky (Ichilov) Medical Center has made medical history by documenting the first-ever case of human infection with a poxvirus traditionally found in fruit bats native to Israel. The groundbreaking discovery was published in The Journal of Infectious Diseases by researchers led by Dr. Yael Paran, head of the Infectious Diseases Unit at Ichilov Hospital.

The case emerged in May 2023 when a 38-year-old Tel Aviv woman sought medical care, presenting with painful palm lesions, severe fatigue, muscle aches, and other systemic symptoms. The patient, a volunteer at an association that cares for bats, had been looking after sick and young fruit bats in her home, including six nursing bats – one of which died and another showed similar skin lesions.

Further investigation revealed four additional volunteers had experienced similar symptoms after bat bites, though they recovered without seeking medical attention. The discovery represents the first scientifically documented instance of poxvirus transmission from bats to humans.

The finding builds on previous research from the Kimron Veterinary Institute in Beit Dagan, which had identified this novel poxvirus in Egyptian fruit bats three years earlier. Through collaboration with the institute's researchers, the team confirmed the breakthrough transmission case.

"While this discovery is significant, it's not cause for public alarm," Paran emphasizes. "The illness is typically mild and requires direct contact for transmission." However, she recommends protective measures such as gloves and masks for anyone working with sick animals, particularly those who are immunocompromised.

The case highlights the growing importance of monitoring zoonotic diseases – those that can jump from animals to humans. Recent decades have seen several such diseases emerge, including Ebola, avian flu, and COVID-19. This reinforces the significance of the "One Health" approach, which advocates for integrated collaboration between medical professionals, veterinarians, and environmental experts.

According to Paran, "to protect both humans and animals, we need collaborative work between healthcare providers and environmental professionals who will monitor, recognize, share information, and develop comprehensive prevention strategies together."

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The Israel Police has launched an investigation after fertilized eggs imported from Georgia were found to carry the hereditary Hemophilia B disease.

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At least one child has already been born in Israel with the rare genetic bleeding disorder that impairs blood clotting, leading to prolonged bleeding and potentially life-threatening complications.

Two doctors have been detained on suspicion of importing – and implanting – the eggs despite knowing they carried Hemophilia B.

Health authorities are set to establish a special committee in coordination with the State Attorney's Office and police to investigate the matter. The Health Ministry has for now suspended the import of fertilized eggs from Georgia and ordered for the women for whom the eggs were imported to be alerted of the matter.

Hemophilia B was not effectively treated until the development of blood clotting factor therapies and extraction technologies in the late 20th century, which significantly improved management of the condition and allowed for a normal or close-to-normal life expectancy. Nevertheless, living with Hemophilia B still poses risks of spontaneous bleeding episodes, which can lead to joint damage, organ damage, and potentially life-threatening complications if not properly managed.

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Shas Minister of Health Uriel Busso took office about a week after the outbreak of the war. In his first interview since taking office, the minister spoke about the challenges of the health system during the war, which he said brought Israel to its worst mental health crisis ever.

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According to Busso, he heard about his appointment as minister of health in place of Moshe Arbel five days after the massacre, when Shas leader Aryeh Deri called him and told him that the Moetzet Chachmei HaTorah (the councils of elders governing Shas) had decided to appoint him. The appointment was made on Sunday about a week after the massacre, after he had been chairman of the health committee in the Knesset for about a year.

Since the outbreak of the war, the hospitals have treated approximately 6,000 people who were injured in the Hamas attack in the surrounding area, and the extensive rocket fire that reached almost every area in Israel.

"The health system was the first to come to its senses on the first terrible day of the war," the newly minted minister told Israel Hayom. According to Busso, "In all the drills they did in the hospitals until the outbreak of the war, the worst estimates talked about a scenario of 150-200 wounded arriving at the emergency room at once. In practice, on that horrific Saturday, 700 wounded arrived at the Soroka hospital in one day, a number that kept growing. All this was carried out when many of the medical and nursing staff members had family members or friends who were murdered, kidnapped, or injured in the war. I get chills when I talk about it."

Busso (50), married and father of six, lives in Bnei Brak. In addition to his yeshiva studies, he enlisted and served in the IDF as a lieutenant. Busso managed educational institutions and served as deputy mayor of Petach Tikva before being elected to the Knesset.

Since his appointment as minister of health, Busso has made many tours of the hospitals and hotels where tens of thousands of massacre survivors and evacuees from towns near Gaza and Lebanon are staying. Busso said that he saw the enormous dedication of the workers of the health system in the hospitals and the HMOs, and witnessed, as mentioned, the terrible testimonies of the wounded and of the members of the medical staff who treated the wounded, and that some of them also had serious injuries to their own family members.

One of the critical issues in the health system in Israel is the readiness and ability of the hospitals to treat hundreds of seriously injured people at once when fewer than half of the hospital wards and operating rooms in Israel are fortified against missiles. According to Minister Busso, "We are prepared to evacuate hospitals in the north to the center of the country if necessary and are preparing for the difficult scenarios that exist in the security system for the continuation of the war. We are now working on the rapid protection of some of the wards that are not yet protected. The total cost of fully protecting all the hospitals in the country is approx. 4 billion shekels".

According to the minister, the COVID epidemic taught the health system to quickly move from routine to emergency, "and the medical teams applied this experience in an exceptional way immediately after the beginning of the terrorist attack – treating thousands of wounded and preparing for the expansion of the war. In the fight against COVID, the health system in Israel demonstrated extraordinary abilities and was praised throughout the world, and this experience has now helped to deal with an amount of wounded that was not foreseen even in the most extreme scenarios that existed in the Israeli health system."

"We are all traumatized now"

Busso presents the issue of mental health and mental trauma as the most difficult problems in the war. This, in particular when the mental health system in Israel has been dried up, starved, and trampled for many years, leads to deplorable conditions of hospitalization and treatment in the psychiatric hospitals, and long lines of months and years for essential mental health treatments in the health funds.

"The mental health crisis in the war is the biggest and most serious mental health event in the country's history," says Busso. "Mental crises do not only afflict those who were in the communities around Gaza and their families but also many Israeli citizens who did not experience the horrors firsthand. We are all in a certain state of anxiety, we are all traumatized now. For example, a woman living in Beit Shemesh approached me in Bnei Brak who looked very frightened and asked to speak with me. She told me that she is not only afraid of the missiles but also of the air raid sirens themselves, and this is a woman who is in a mental crisis just because of the sirens, there are many like her."

According to Busso, the Ministry of Health is planning a long series of actions and initiatives to try to deal with the issue of mental health. "The Ministry of Health intends to proactively try to locate, for the first time, those who need mental help and support. There is also a plan by the Mental Health Division to employ thousands of therapists with a bachelor's degree in psychology and mental health to work as 'psychological mentors', who will respond to the health insurance funds." He says the Ministry of Health plans to provide hundreds of new rehabilitation beds nationwide.

"I know the system"

Regarding the claims that his wartime appointment to a position that requires adjustment time could damage the health system, Busso says: "I studied the health system when I was head of the health committee in the Knesset and I got to know the whole world of concepts. Otherwise, a situation is certainly possible in the discussion with the director general of the Ministry of Health, after 10 minutes the concepts discussed will be in Chinese for those who do not know and understand the field.

"At this time of the war, it was right to have a full-time health minister (the previous minister, Moshe Arbel, was at the same time the minister of the interior, RR) even though the previous minister did an excellent job. Now I see how much work there is in the Ministry of Health so that if there were 30 hours in a day there would be work for all those hours."

A severe budget deficit

During the interview, the minister emphasized that the successful functioning of the hospitals and health insurance funds in the war was due to the severe chronic budget deficit in the health system. According to Busso, a budget of about 20 billion shekels ($5 billion) is needed to match the governmental-public budgeting in Israel with that accepted in Western countries.

Busso refused to say that such an addition would be his demand from the government after the war, but he says that "after the war, the state's view of the health system must go up a notch. I am not prepared to remain in a situation where an Israeli citizen waits 3-4 months for an MRI scan, it is a matter of life and death. Shortening the queues will be my top priority after the war, and even more so after everyone understands that health cannot be separated from security."

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Innovative artificial intelligence-based technology has recently saved the life of a patient at the Galilee Medical Center in Nahariya.

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A resident of the city, the 50-year-old patient arrived for a routine CT scan – after complaining of strong headaches for an extended period – and after its completion, left.

Video: Clashes between visitors and doctors at the Rambam Health Care Campus / Credit: Rambam Health Care Campus

The results usually take one-to-two weeks to arrive, but in this case, an alert by the AI-based program warned that he might have intracranial bleeding, prompting doctors to call the man – who was still near the hospital – to return swiftly.

He was operated on in an emergency procedure that saved his life.

The AI-based program - called Viz.ai – leverages advanced, FDA-cleared algorithms to analyze medical imaging data, like CT scans, providing real-time insights and automated assessments to accelerate diagnosis and treatment.

Galilee Medical Center's Dr. Dan Paz, who participated in the development of the program, lauded it for its life-saving abilities, saying that "without it, the patient would have probably come to us too late."

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Doctors of the Sheba Tel-HaShomer Medical Center made history Wednesday by performing for the first time in Israel a surgery that delivers gene therapy directly to the brain.

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The procedure, which involved injecting the gene directly into the brain of the patient – 4-year-old Adiroop Kumar from India – lasted seven hours, and with the cost of 10 million shekels ($2.7 million) per vial was the single most expensive single surgery ever performed in Israel.

The groundbreaking treatment was conducted as part of a global study on the Upstaza gene therapy medicine, with 30 more children participating in Taiwan, Japan, China, Germany, England, France, and the United States.

In Israel, the surgery was conducted by Dr. Zion Zibly, director of the Department of Neurosurgery at the Sheba Medical Center and Dr. Lior Ungar, a senior neurosurgeon in the department. Dr. Bruria Gidoni-Ben-Zeev, head of the Pediatric Neurology Department at the Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital, oversaw all the treatments, and the follow-up and medical care.

Adiroop had arrived with his mother from India specially for the procedure, which is conducted as part of the study, free of charge. A few years earlier, he was diagnosed with AADC deficiency, an incredibly rare genetic disease that is caused by changes in the gene that produces the AADC enzyme needed to produce certain substances vital for the normal functioning of the brain and nerves, such as dopamine and serotonin. The condition makes it nearly impossible for a child to lift his or her head, let alone walk and talk.

Until now, there has been no cure for AADC deficiency, which most often leads to death by the age of 10. In Israel, 10 children have been diagnosed with the disease in recent years, with four fatal cases. Around two new cases are diagnosed in Israel yearly.

Upstaza is a first-of-its-kind treatment that involves introducing a healthy gene into the patient's brain, into the area that misses the necessary gene. It has already been authorized in Europe, with Israel and the United States to follow.

"We work with hundreds of patients, and each and every one of them has a unique story. The same is true in this case, which fills us with the hope that we will be able to save many more lives in Israel and around the world. We believe that this scientific breakthrough will also serve us in other areas, and will allow us to bring relief to many patients,' Zibly said.

Adiroop's mother told Israel Hayom, "Adiroop is our second child, and in a genetic test we did at the age of six months, he was diagnosed with the disease. The doctors warned us that his life expectancy might be short. Therefore, every morning and all the time I check his breathing to make sure he is alive. I really hope that there is a chance that he will survive this terrible disease.

"We hope that in Israel we will start a new life and path for our son. We also feel in Israel and in the hospital the humanity and the kindness, we no longer feel like strangers. We love the people, the culture, the tradition, the language and the food. Indeed it is the Holy Land."

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An alleged mixup in the Soroka Medical Center may have resulted in a woman undergoing an unnecessary mastectomy, Israel Hayom has learned. 

The surgery, which took place in June 2022, was carried out on the woman's left breast based on a pathological examination that was conducted on another patient.

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After the medical staff realized that an error had been made, they told the woman who underwent the mistaken operation that this was the first time this happened in the hospital. But it turned out that a similar incident may have happened in 2008, Israel Hayom has learned. 

Israel Hayom can reveal that the Health Ministry has been investigating the matter after it received a complaint from the woman's lawyer and following the hospital's own report. The lawyer asked that a commission of inquiry be formed in order to "prevent future such incidents and to determine how such a grave error was made." 

The woman, Meirav Baר-Hen, has recently filed a malpractice suit against the HMO running the hospital, asking for damages. On April 11, 2022, Bat Hen, a mother of three, underwent mammography screening along with a breast ultrasound that indicated a possible cancerous tissue.

Following a biopsy three days later at the hospital, six samples were taken from her breast and on the 26th she was told that based on the pathological results from those samples, she has a malignant form of cancer and needs an urgent surgical intervention that would result in an almost full mastectomy in her left breast. 

After two weeks, when the tissue was analyzed from what has been removed, the surgeon called her and allegedly said that there is "incongruity between the first biopsy showing malignant cancer and the biopsy from the tissue that has been removed, which appears to have no cancerous cells." The doctor allegedly went on to say that "you have cancer, so in any case you should continue with the radiation." 

After she became suspicious that something wasn't right, Bar-Hen approached the physician in lab, who dismissed her concerns. Even after the physician called the surgeon while she was presented and he reiterated that there was no mixup. But she insisted that the analysis between the two biopsies be checked, and was ultimately proved right. Her medical file says that "during the operation, there was no indication of a cancerous tumor and that the tissue where a tumor was found did not belong to this patient. Therefore this patient only had benign tissue his her breast; the diagnosis given to her was a mistake and she was told this."

Israel Hayom asked Soroka Medical Center and the HMO Clalit Health Services for a response on the two alleged incidents of unnecessary operations, and whether lessons have been drawn. However, both issued only the following statement: "The lawsuit has been received, we are currently studying it and we will respond as is acceptable in legal proceedings; the incident was reported to the Ministry of Health."

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An innovative endoscopic procedure that catheterizes the drainage system of the eye is saving patients from blindness and significantly decreasing the need for the currently prevalent invasive surgeries, which entail complex efforts to bypass the eye's drainage system.

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The trailblazing, minimally invasive surgery, known as gonioscopy-assisted transluminal trabeculotomy, was introduced several months ago at Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba to treat open-angle glaucoma, which causes irreversible harm to tens of thousands of Israelis, most of them elderly.

The GATT procedure involves cutting the first layer of the natural drain system (trabecular meshwork), which allows the fluid to leave the eye more easily and lowers the eye pressure.

The surgery is performed in the operating room under anesthesia. Tiny incisions are made in the front of the eye, and a special lens is placed on the eye to visualize the eye's natural drain. A small opening is made in the drain, through which a catheter (a wire the size of a strand of hair) is inserted. The catheter has a light at one end, allowing the surgeon to track its position. Once the catheter has reached the right position, the catheter is pulled and the drain is opened. The fluid can then leave the eye. The GATT procedure takes about 45 minutes but will take longer if performed along with cataract surgery.

Glaucoma is a group of eye conditions that damage the optic nerve, the health of which is vital for good vision. This damage is often caused by abnormally high pressure in the eye. It is one of the leading causes of blindness for people over the age of 60.

More than 200 patients have undergone the GATT procedure at Meir Medical Center, with a very high success rate of 90%. Thus far, a two-year-old girl, around 40 patients aged 10-50, and the rest aged 60-96 have undergone the surgery.

The procedure is performed by Dr. Avner Belkin, the only doctor in Israel who has been chosen for the highly specialized, prestigious training program, in which just three doctors from across the globe are selected per year.

Prof. Elad Moisseiev, the chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at Meir Medical Center, told Israel Hayom: "The GATT surgery brings real tidings to glaucoma patients. It's a relatively short procedure that doesn't require special implants, and in the hands of a skilled surgeon such as Dr. Belkin, the operation is highly effective with a low percentage of complications. Beyond the quick recovery time and reduction of pressure in the eye, the surgery also significantly reduces the number of drops that patients need to apply afterward, and in many cases don't need them at all."

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As the Coronavirus Cabinet is poised to remove most of the remaining coronavirus restrictions and senior government officials boast of a supposed victory over the Omicron wave, let us remember the tragic toll the strain continues to take on the country.

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Israel went from being a global leader in battling the pandemic to one that is considered to have failed in curbing the Omicron strain: 1,400 deaths in the current wave and counting, Israelis who would have otherwise lived many more years; tens of thousands of critically ill patients, most of whom, doctors say, will suffer from side effects for months and even years to come; and millions of infections with some Israelis – including children – having to deal with long-term physical and mental symptoms.

As for the healthcare system, the reports with regard to the fifth infection wave are no less grim. And although most journalists, ministers, and even Health Ministry officials seem not to have noticed, hospitals speak of a decrease in the quality of medical care due to an acute and persistent shortage of medical personnel qualified to treat critically ill COVID patients and those on ventilators, which could lead to even more deaths.

The one thing we learned from all four previous infection waves is that rushing to remove restrictions results in more cases, more critically ill patients and puts more lives at risk, which is a heavy, unnecessary, and unforgivable price to pay.

The ministry's hastiness to remove the already few restrictions in place will cost us dearly, if Heaven forbid, another mutated strain arrives in fragile and unprepared Israel.

The ministry must encourage Israelis to continue to get inoculated and acquire protection against the virus. Then again, how motivated will the public be to get vaccinated if the government makes it seem that the coronavirus is under control?

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Imagine a country that is at the peak of a coronavirus infection wave with 80,000 new cases every day and half a million active carriers, thousands of whom are children.

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In this country, 2,250 COVID patients are hospitalized across 24 hospitals. Of those, 900 are in serious condition, 250 are critically ill – between life and death – and 190 are on ventilators, without which they would not be able to breathe. Among those hospitalized, 120 are children, of whom 20 are in critical condition.

The Health Ministry of this country determined that the hospitalization rate is the highest since the outbreak of the pandemic two years ago, and this does not even take into account the 8,500 doctors and nurses who are in quarantine. Between 20-40 COVID patients die in this country daily. It also has 170,000 citizens in self-isolation, with the number of quarantined since the outbreak of the pandemic to reach one million soon.

The health experts of this country have said that there are children in the world – especially those unvaccinated – who after contracting Omicron, developed a severe heart condition and neurological disorders.

Now imagine that the prime, health, and education ministers of this country decided – at the peak of morbidity – to remove almost all quarantine guidelines, essentially allowing the spread of the virus among thousands of children.

If you heard of such a thing, no doubt you would say it cannot be true. That there cannot be a government that abandons its citizens and gambles with the children's lives. But precisely this is what is happening in Israel, with Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, and Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton, who agreed on the insane and extreme step, which proves how dangerous, immoral and irresponsible is the policy of the current government.

Bennett, Horowitz and Shasha-Biton are consistently and deliberately removing the layers of the protection of the public, especially the children in response to the education minister's irresponsible demands that began with the outbreak of the pandemic – under the guise of concern for public safety.

In the previous infection wave, Bennett and Horowitz were willing to go to any lengths to prevent a national lockdown, which cost the lives of over 1,800 Israelis.
In the current morbidity wave, they are again willing to pay the price.

One cannot possibly do away with self-isolation at the height of an infection wave, neither by adults nor by children. Such steps can only be taken when infections are decreasing, and even then, it must be done slowly, gradually, and cautiously.

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With morbidity levels expected to remain high over the next few weeks, hospital directors have warned Health Ministry Director-General Nachman Ash immense pressure on coronavirus wards as well as a shortage of coronavirus intensive care unit staff could threaten their ability to provide patients with adequate medical care.

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According to Health Ministry data released Wednesday, Israel's infection rate stands at 21.83%. Of the 405,181 people who tested for the virus Tuesday, 76,017 were found to have the disease. The reproduction rate is 1.23.

There are 537,755 active cases of the virus. There are 888 people in serious condition, of whom 187 are on ventilators and 18 are hooked up to ECMO machines.

Although 2,009,379 Israelis have recovered from COVID-19 since the outbreak of the pandemic, over 8,502 have died.

According to the Military Intelligence task force on the coronavirus, mortality rates from the virus have increased 40% over the last two weeks. In recent days, some 40 Israelis have died from the virus each day, according to the task force.

The director of one of the largest hospitals in the country said, "The situation today is such that because of the massive pressure on the coronavirus wards and the unprecedented shortage of doctors and nurses who are in quarantine, there is already serious harm to the quality of medical care for coronavirus patients in serious condition and patients in serious condition in general."

He said, "This is the most serious condition we have faced since the outset of the pandemic, and we've only begun to count the dead."

Dr. Nimrod Maimon, who heads Soroka Medical Center in Beersheba's Internal Medicine Department, said, "The challenge we now face today is twofold: dealing with the increase in morbidity in the fifth wave and providing patients with the usual winter morbidity with care. What characterizes this wave is that many patients suffer from other medical problems – like strokes, cardiac arrests, trauma injuries, among others – are also diagnosed with the coronavirus. This is a situation that necessitates the work of multiple teams and the management of many different hospital departments to care for these patients."

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Health Minister Nitzan Horowitz, and Education Minister Yifat Shasha-Biton met with health experts on Wednesday following their recommendation plans to end quarantine for students exposed to a confirmed coronavirus carrier. Following a meeting with members of the Israeli Pediatric Association Tuesday night, the experts called to postpone the move by one week to allow for morbidity levels from the Omicron wave to decline.

The proposed policy change, which would see students test for the virus twice weekly, had been set to go into effect Thursday.

In a letter to Bennett, Horowitz, and Shasha-Biton, Teachers' Union chief Yaffa Ben-David claimed that "the planned framework will result in many students confirmed to have the coronavirus coming to school, and no one will have any way of knowing. The increasing spread of the pandemic will put all teaching staff and students at risk of infection. We believe it is of the utmost importance the education system remains open. The principals and all pedagogical staff have enlisted to this end despite the difficulty and the heavy burden placed on their shoulders, and all this for the sake of Israeli children. I call on you to come to your sense and rescind your decision."

Opposition Leader Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday blasted the coalition's handling of the pandemic amid the rising infection rate.

"[Prime Minister Naftali] Bennett's and [Foreign Minister and Prime Minister-designate Yair] Lapid's government have given up and led Israel to the first place in coronavirus infection. The failure of seriously ill patients: There are over 850 today, and that harms the medical care of other hospitalized patients. The number of hospitalized coronavirus patients has broken all-time records. As for children: Despite evidence from the US of severe disease and symptoms that harm children who contract [the] Omicron [variant of the disease], the government has decided we will move toward the mass infection of all Israeli children in another two days: No quarantines, no enforcement, no organized testing – they will all get infected. And after the children are infected, and some of them, unfortunately, will require hospitalization and will suffer from symptoms for years, the children will infect the teaching staff, and will later go home and continue to infect Mom and Dad, Grandpa, and Grandma. That is a real danger.

"This failed government is marching there with eyes wide open and zero decision-making," he said.

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