Gaza’s health ministry announced it had detected the first case of polio in the besieged enclave, hours after United Nations officials called for a pause in the fighting to allow for a campaign to vaccinate children against the virus.
In a statement released Friday, the Health Ministry blamed the emergence of the virus in the territory on “difficult” conditions in Gaza – including the spread of sewage in the streets, shortages of medical supplies and a lack of personal hygiene products due to the Israeli blockade.
Hours earlier, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had called for humanitarian pauses in the war in Gaza to carry out a polio vaccination campaign.
“It is impossible to carry out a polio vaccination campaign when war is raging everywhere,” he told reporters at U.N. headquarters in New York.
Guterres called on the warring parties to immediately ensure humanitarian pauses, while warning that preventing and containing the spread of polio in Gaza would require a massive, coordinated and urgent effort.
“Let us be clear: the best vaccine against polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire,” Guterres said. “But in any case, a pause in the fight against polio is essential.”
The UN chief added that the organization was ready to launch a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza for children under 10, but he said the “challenges are serious.”
Vaccination coverage of at least 95 per cent will be needed in each of the two rounds of the campaign to prevent the spread of polio and reduce its emergence, given the devastation in Gaza, Guterres said.
He stressed that a successful campaign would require facilitating the transport of vaccines and refrigeration equipment at every stage, the entry of polio experts into Gaza, as well as reliable internet and telephone services.
According to the UN children’s agency (UNICEF), the vaccination will be administered in two rounds and is expected to be launched in late August and September this year across the Gaza Strip.
The Gaza Health Ministry also said the vaccination campaign cannot succeed without a ceasefire that would allow medical teams free access to people throughout the territory.
“We emphasize that the vaccination campaign will not be sufficient without comprehensive solutions to the problems of sewage and the accumulation of garbage between the tents of the displaced persons, and without the provision of drinking water and an end to the aggression,” he said.
“The Ministry of Health stresses that the spread of this virus will not stop at the borders of Gaza, and that international institutions and concerned parties must take the necessary measures to stop its spread inside and outside Gaza.”
Hamas said it supported the UN’s request for a humanitarian pause to vaccinate children against polio.
“Hamas also demands the delivery of medicine and food to more than two million Palestinians stranded in the Gaza Strip,” Izzat al-Rishq, a member of the group’s political bureau, said in a statement.
In July, the Gaza Health Ministry declared a polio outbreak in the Gaza Strip and blamed the spread of the deadly virus on the Israeli military offensive in the enclave. The Israeli military said in July that it had already begun vaccinating its soldiers against the disease.
Polio has been detected in sewage in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah and Khan Younis governorates, Dr. Hamid Jafari, a polio expert at the World Health Organization (WHO), said earlier this month.
Without adequate health services, Gaza’s population is particularly vulnerable to disease outbreaks, public health officials and aid groups said.
Israel has restricted access to Gaza for aid groups and Israeli forces have bombed aid convoys, killing dozens of aid workers.
In addition, the Israeli offensive has put most of Gaza’s hospitals out of service, and the repeated displacement of Palestinians, who continue to be subject to evacuation orders by the Israeli military, makes it difficult to locate and access unvaccinated children.
Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care physician, told Tel Aviv Tribune last month that the presence of the virus in sewage was a “ticking time bomb.”
“Normally, if you have a case of polio, you’re going to isolate them, you’re going to make sure they use a toilet that no one else is using, you’re going to make sure they’re not around other people, (but) that’s impossible,” she said.
“Everyone is now congregating in refugee camps without having been vaccinated for at least nine months, including children who would otherwise have been vaccinated against polio and adults who, in the context of an outbreak, should receive a booster, including health workers,” she added.
Polio, which is transmitted primarily through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.
Children under five are most at risk of contracting the viral disease, particularly infants under two, as normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by ten months of conflict.
