Polio was eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago, but vaccinations plunged after the war began 10 months ago and the territory has become a breeding ground for the virus, aid groups say
Palestinians displaced by the Israeli air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip, walk through a dark streak of sewage flowing into the streets of the southern town of Khan Younis, Gaza Strip, on July 4, 2024.The threat of polio is rising fast in the Gaza Strip, prompting aid groups to call for an urgent pause in the war so they can ramp up vaccinations and head off a full-blown outbreak.
The U.N. aims to bring 1.6 million doses of polio vaccine into Gaza, where sanitation and water systems have been destroyed, leaving open pits of human waste in crowded tent camps. Families living in the camps have little clean water or even soap to maintain hygiene and sometimes use waste water to drink or clean clothes and dishes.
WHO and UNICEF said Friday that three children are suspected of being infected and that their stool samples were being tested by a laboratory in Jordan. The Ministry of Health in Ramallah in the West Bank said late Friday that tests conducted in Jordan confirmed one case in a 10-month-old child in Gaza.
Health workers in Gaza are gearing up for a mass vaccination campaign to begin at the end of August and continue into September. The goal is to immunize 640,000 children under the age of 10 over two rounds of vaccinations, according to WHO. The only countries where polio is endemic are Afghanistan and Pakistan. But outbreaks of the vaccine-derived virus have occurred in war-torn Ukraine and Yemen, where conditions aren’t nearly as bad as they are in Gaza.
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