In 2022, New York State reported its first case of the potentially debilitating disease polio since 2013. Subsequently, genetically similar samples of the virus were found in sewage. Gov. Kathy Hochul declared a state of emergency.
A massive polio vaccination campaign was launched. In March 2024, the Rockland area, where the polio case was reported, had polio-free water for an entire year.
A similar situation has now occurred in Gaza. The first case in 25 years has been reported, and the virus has now been detected in wastewater.
Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.According to the United Nations, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater in June.
It is important to note that 95% of Gazans have received a polio vaccination already.
A massive vaccination campaign is being organized to get shots to 1,000,000 children.
And while a vaccination campaign would likely be effective, the situation is being used to try and force Israel to pause its efforts in Gaza for seven days.
They say the ambitious vaccination plans are impossible, though, without a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.We are anticipating and preparing for the worst-case scenario of a polio outbreak in the coming weeks or month,” Francis Hughes, the Gaza response director at CARE International, told The Associated Press.The World Health Organization and UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, said in a joint statement Friday that, at a minimum, a seven-day pause is needed to carry out a mass vaccination plan.
In an effort to establish a ceasefire, all the panic words are being used to describe the situation, such as “ticking time bomb.”
Authorities in the central Gaza city of Deir el-Balah this week predicted that “roads will be flooded by wastewater” and “diseases will spread” after it turned off sewage water pumping and treatment stations.“We’re talking about a very grim medical reality,” said Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Deir el-Balah, where 700,000 people have arrived in search of safety from fighting and air strikes.The Israeli military’s escalation of attacks on “water wells, sanitation and water waste treatment”, and its obstruction of “essential hygiene supplies” into the Strip had created a “suitable environment for the spread of different diseases,” he said….Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a paediatric intensive care physician, told Al Jazeera the presence of the virus in sewage was a “ticking time bomb”.
There is a reason that the horseman Pestilence rides with those of war, hunger, and death. When Hamas-led forces decided to attack innocent Israelis on October 7th, they invited all of these riders into their world.
Israeli is clearly willing to help with the vaccination campaign.
COGAT conducts in-depth situational assessments twice a week with the Ministry of Health, the WHO, and UNICEF to understand the status of the spread of the virus in Gaza. Additionally, specific meetings are held to implement vaccinations among the population in Gaza in cooperation with USAID…..Furthermore, as part of the medical response provided by the State of Israel, COGAT maintains continuous contact and conducts situational assessments with all health system stakeholders and the international community for ongoing monitoring of the medical situation in Gaza. As part of this effort, since the beginning of the war, the State of Israel has facilitated the establishment of 14 field hospitals in Gaza, alongside the entry of 2,566 trucks carrying 25,955 tons of medications and medical equipment into Gaza, which have been distributed to the population.
It’s up to Israel to assess how to proceed, based on its own interests and risk assessments, given the fact over 90% of the populace has been vaccinated and of the children who do get infected, only one in 200 experiences irreversible paralysis.
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