Gaza in threat of polio after 25 years

TEHRAN (Defapress) - Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after the UN chief, António Guterres, called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.

Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.

According to the UN, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater in June.

“Doctors suspected the presence of symptoms consistent with polio,” the health ministry said. “After conducting the necessary tests in the Jordanian capital, Amman, the infection was confirmed.”

The case emerged shortly after Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children.

Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious. It can cause disfigurement and paralysis and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.

The UN health and children’s agencies said they had made detailed plans to reach children across the besieged Palestinian territory and could start this month. But that would require pauses in the 10-month-old war between Israel and Hamas, they said.

“Preventing and containing the spread of polio will take a massive, coordinated, and urgent effort,” Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York. “I am appealing to all parties to provide concrete assurances right away guaranteeing humanitarian pauses for the campaign.”

The World Health Organization and UN Children’s Fund Unicef said they were planning two seven-day vaccination drives across the Gaza Strip, starting in late August, against type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).

“These pauses in fighting would allow children and families to safely reach health facilities, and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccination,” the agencies said in a statement.

After 25 years without polio, its re-emergence in the Gaza Strip would threaten neighboring countries, it added. “A ceasefire is the only way to ensure public health security in the Gaza Strip and the region.”