The moment Maram al-Amawi returns home from school, she slips on the 3D-printed mask that covers her face and treats her severe burns from a blaze at a Gaza bakery.
She does not go out in the streets for fear of being made fun of.
Eight-year-old al-Amawi was severely burned a year ago in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nuseirat, in the central Gaza Strip.
Photo: AFP
The inferno, which local authorities said was caused by a gas leak, left 25 dead and dozens injured, and ravaged several shops.
Today, she and her mother, who was also seriously injured on the face and hands, wear transparent plastic masks developed by medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF).
The 3D-printed mask puts pressure on the face and advances the healing process, said Firas Suergo, head of physiotherapy for MSF in Gaza.
A patient’s face is copied using a 3D scanner, which then allows the printing of a customized plastic mask.
Since the launch of the project in April last year, which has also been run in Jordan and Haiti, about 20 people have been fitted in Gaza, an enclave of 2 million Palestinians wedged among Israel, Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea.
The fitted mask, with adjustable straps to hold on to the face, has to be worn for between six months and a year, depending on the severity of the lesions.
Even though her mask is transparent and fits perfectly with the contours of her soft face, al-Amawi is afraid of being pointed at in the playground.
“The mask has made my burns better, but I’m afraid people will laugh at me if I wear it outside the house,” said al-Amawi, dressed in the black-and-white striped lace uniform of her school, which is run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
“I put it on as soon as I get home from classes,” she said.
She wears it eight hours per day.
Her mother, Izdihar al-Amawi, 31, keeps her mask on for 16 hours, only removing it during the day to eat.
At night, she wears another mask, and she also has special gloves for burns on her hands.
“Our wounds have improved thanks to the mask,” said Izdihar al-Amawi, who is able to go about household chores as she was before the accident.
“We were waiting for the taxi after shopping and we suddenly heard a big explosion, then saw fire everywhere,” she said.
Izdihar al-Amawi and her daughter spent two months in the hospital undergoing operations.
Accepting their disfigured complexions was not easy.
“My family refused to look at my face after the accident,” Izdihar al-Amawi said.
“I only saw my face 50 days after the operation, in the elevator mirror while going to get my mask at the clinic,” she added.
The mother of four hopes the scars will disappear “in two or three years, as the doctors told us,” she said.
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