The World Health Organization (WHO) said Friday that a 10-month-old baby has been paralyzed by type 2 poliovirus in the war-torn Gaza Strip, the first such case in the region in 25 years, prompting the UN agency to call for urgent vaccination of all infants.
Although type 2 viruses (cVDPV2) are not inherently more dangerous than types 1 and 3, they have been responsible for most outbreaks in recent years, especially in areas with low vaccination rates.
The UN agency has called on Israel and Hamas, the Gaza Strip's main Palestinian militant group, to agree to a seven-day humanitarian pause in the 10-month war to allow for a vaccination campaign in the territory.
WATCH l Test results may be causing false polio reports, says Gaza doctor:
Health officials in Gaza have warned of a new potential risk: polio.
Omar Al-Zawaidi, a father of two, had gone to the hospital to get his children vaccinated against polio, a highly contagious virus that spreads through the fecal-oral route, though doctors in Gaza warn that the virus can be hard to detect because it can be asymptomatic.
“Polio does not discriminate between Palestinian and Israeli children,” the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) said in a post on X on Friday.
“Delaying the humanitarian pause increases the risk of the infection spreading among children,” Philippe Lazzarini added.
WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement that the baby, who had lost movement in his left leg, was currently in a stable condition.
Vaccination campaign coming soon
The WHO said it plans to launch two polio vaccination campaigns across the densely populated Gaza Strip in late August and September 2024.
Gaza residents are particularly vulnerable to disease outbreaks because fighting has caused widespread damage or destruction to health services and a collapsed sanitation infrastructure has led to the spread of untreated sewage. Children under the age of five are particularly at risk of polio.
Polio is a highly contagious virus that spreads primarily through the fecal-oral route and can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.
Last month, traces of the poliovirus were found in sewage in Deir al-Barah and Khan Yunis, two areas in southern and central Gaza that are home to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by fighting.
Gaza's Health Ministry reported the first case of polio a week ago in a 10-month-old baby in Deir al-Balah, the region's capital, where fighting has often taken place.
Hamas on August 16 supported a UN call for a seven-day cessation of fighting to allow Gaza's children to be vaccinated against polio, Izzat al-Rishq, a senior member of the Hamas political bureau, said on Friday.
Israel, which has been besieging the Gaza Strip since October last year and has destroyed much of the area with ground attacks and bombings, announced days later that it would help send polio vaccines to the Gaza Strip for about one million children.
Challenges in a war zone
The Israeli military's Humanitarian Aid Force (COGAT) said it was coordinating with the Palestinians to procure 43,000 multi-dose vaccines for delivery inside Israel and then to the Gaza Strip in the coming weeks.
COGAT added that the vaccine will be enough to vaccinate more than one million children with two doses.
Watch l Mourning the newly confirmed war casualties in Israel and Gaza:
Anger spreads in Israel and Gaza as more hostages are buried
As the burials of the hostages rescued from Gaza continue, some Israelis criticize the government for not doing enough to bring home the remaining hostages kidnapped by Hamas fighters in a deadly attack on Oct. 7. And in Gaza, new air strikes have killed dozens of people, including many children.
As well as allowing polio experts into Gaza, the UN says a successful campaign will require transporting vaccines and refrigeration equipment at every stage, as well as creating conditions that allow the campaign to reach children in all parts of the rubble-filled areas.
Vaccinating a mobile population and tracking vaccinations will be a major challenge. A wave of Israeli evacuations in the Gaza Strip since Israel and Hamas began their war in October — 12 in August alone — has forced 90 percent of the territory's 2.1 million residents to flee, the U.N.'s top humanitarian official for the Palestinian territories said Friday.
Muhannad Hadi said the evacuation orders were putting civilians at risk rather than protecting them.
“They are once again fleeing their families under fire and with only what they have, in ever shrinking territories,” he said. Deprived of health care, shelter, wells and humanitarian supplies, civilians are “fleeing from one destruction to another with no end in sight,” he said.
The war began on Oct. 7 when Hamas and other militants attacked Israel, leaving about 1,200 people dead, including several Canadians.
About 110 hostages held by militants are still in the Gaza Strip, and the Israeli government has previously said it believes about a third of them are dead.
Israeli military attacks launched in retaliation have left more than 40,000 Palestinians dead in the Gaza Strip, according to the local health ministry, which does not distinguish between combatants and civilians in its daily death toll.
