United States: The health ministry of Gaza has declared a polio epidemic all over the Palestinian enclave while criticizing the devastating military offensive of Israel for the spread of the virus.
More about the news
According to a statement by the ministry made on Monday, the situation “poses a health threat to the residents of Gaza and neighboring countries” and represents a threat to public health, making the authorities declare an emergency after the Israelis started a genocidal war in October.
The ministry called the epidemic a “setback” to the global polio eradication program and called for an “immediate intervention to end the [Israeli] aggression and find radical solutions,” pointing out the lack of potable water, compromising personal hygiene, damaged sewage networks, and removal of tonnes of rubbish and solid waste.
More about Poliomyelitis
Epidemiology of Poliomyelitis is a highly infectious virus transmitted through the fecal-oral route. Its clinical manifestations include invasion of the nervous system and paralysis.
Polio is now preventable through vaccination; the incidences of polio have declined by 99 percent worldwide as organizations strive to eradicate the disease, as Aljazeera reported.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, as said earlier this month, that it had identified “component poliovirus type 2” in coordination with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
The presence of the virus was encountered in sewage “that collects and flows between the tents of the displaced,” said the ministry.
The World Health Organization (WHO) said that on Friday, it will distribute over one million polio vaccines to children in the Gaza Strip over the next weeks after the virus was found in sewage samples.
Moreover, the military of Israel has said that the evidence of the “component poliovirus type 2” said it will begin introducing the polio vaccine to soldiers in Gaza.
The violent conflict that occurred in Gaza has affected the sewage and water systems, tearing and depleting them. The streets near some of the camps where displaced Palestinians are living have been flooded with sewage.
Last week, the UN stated that aside from the discovery of the polio virus, there has been a sharp rise in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery, and gastroenteritis as the sanitary situation worsens in Gaza.
What more have the experts stated?
According to Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir-al Balah in central Gaza, “This is only the start of the wave of diseases the Gaza Strip is going to face,” and “Palestinians have been living in makeshift tents without any bathrooms, without any hygiene, without access to water, sanitation. Sewage is everywhere,” as Aljazeera reported.
Moreover, as per Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care physician, the presence of the polio virus this month in the sewage was a “ticking time bomb,” and “Normally, if you have a case of polio, you’re going to isolate them, you’re going to make sure that they use a bathroom that nobody else uses, make sure that they’re not in close proximity to other people, [but] that’s impossible.”
“You have everybody clustering in refugee camps at the moment without vaccines for at least the past nine months, including children who would otherwise have been vaccinated for polio and adults who, in the setting of an outbreak, should receive a booster, including healthcare workers,” She added.