Ramallah, Palestinian Territories, 17 August 2024 (TDI): Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after United Nations chief Antonio 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 ten-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.
According to the UN, Gaza, now in its eleventh month of war, has not registered a polio case for twenty five years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater in June.
Doctors suspected the symptoms consistent with polio, the health ministry said. “After conducting the required tests in Amman, the infection was confirmed.”
The case emerged shortly after Guterres urged for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate over 640,000 children.
Poliovirus, most often spread through contaminated water and sewage, is highly infectious. It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially deadly. It mainly affects minors under the age of five.
The UN health and children’s agencies said they had made detailed plans to reach children across the besieged territory and could start this month.
But that would need pauses in the war between Israel and Hamas, they said.
Containing and preventing the spread of the virus will take an urgent, massive, and coordinated effort, Guterres told journalists at UN headquarters in New York.
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“I am appealing to all parties to give concrete assurances right away guaranteeing humanitarian pauses for the drive.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) and UN children’s fund UNICEF said they were preparing a plan for two 7-day vaccination campaigns across Gaza, starting in late August, against type II poliovirus.
