CAIRO (AP) — 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. One case has been confirmed, others are suspected and the virus was detected in wastewater in six different locations in July.
FILE - 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. Health authorities and aid agencies are racing to avert an outbreak of polio in the Gaza Strip after the virus was detected in the territory's wastewater and three cases with a suspected polio symptom have been reported.
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.. Families living in the camps have little clean water or even soap to maintain hygiene and sometimes use wastewater 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. While more than 440,000 doses of polio vaccine were brought into Gaza in December, that supply has diminished to just over 86,000, according to Hamid Jafari, director of polio eradication for the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region.
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