Ramallah:Palestinian health officials on Friday reported the first case of polio in an unvaccinated 10-month old-child in the Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, the first case in 25 years in the coastal enclave that has been engulfed in the Israel-Hamas war since October 7.
After discovering the child's symptoms, tests were conducted in Jordan's capital of Amman and the case was confirmed to be polio, said the ministry. The potentially fatal, paralysing disease mostly strikes children under age 5 and typically spreads through contaminated water. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where the spread of polio has never been stopped.
UN chief Antonio Guterres called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children."As the poliovirus is now circulating in Gaza, the UN is poised to launch a vaccine campaign for more than 640,000 children. It's impossible to conduct a polio vaccination campaign amid a raging war. Let’s be clear: The ultimate vaccine for polio in Gaza is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire. But in any case, a Polio Pause in the fighting is a must," Guterres said in a post on his X handle.
The World Health Organisation did not immediately respond to requests to confirm the case. However, UN health and children's agencies have called for seven-day pauses in the fighting, starting at the end of August, to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children against polio. They said the polio virus had been discovered in wastewater in two major cities last month in Gaza, which has been polio free for the last 25 years, according to the United Nations.
The humanitarian community has warned of the re-emergence of polio since the latest war erupted when Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people and taking more than 250 hostage. Israel's devastating retaliatory offensive has killed more than 40,000 people in Gaza in the 10-month-long conflict and created a dire humanitarian situation, which health officials say has created a public health emergency.