Delaying a humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip, which is under a devastating Israeli war of extermination, increases the “risk of the spread of polio.”
This is what the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, confirmed on X , adding that “it is very sad that the World Health Organization confirmed that a 10-month-old infant in Gaza was paralysed due to polio.”
He explained that this case is the first in Gaza in more than 25 years.
The UNRWA Commissioner stated that polio will affect both Palestinian and Israeli children, and delaying the humanitarian truce will increase the risk of the disease spreading among children.
He pointed out that bringing vaccines to Gaza is not enough, and for vaccines to have an effect, it must be put in the mouths of every child under the age of ten, explaining that UNRWA medical teams will provide vaccines in its clinics and through its mobile health teams in the Strip.
Today, Friday, The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip said that with the start of the entry of supplies for the polio vaccination campaign into the Gaza Strip, a ceasefire must be achieved for the campaign to succeed.
In a brief statement, it said that the vaccination campaign will not be effective alone in light of the lack of clean water, personal hygiene supplies, and the spread of sewage water in the tents of the displaced, and the lack of a healthy environment.
On August 16, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the first confirmed case of polio in the Gaza Strip.
It stated that the case was recorded in Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip “for a 10-month-old child who did not receive any dose of polio vaccination.”
On Wednesday, 20 international relief organisations and health workers stressed the need to deliver polio vaccines to Gaza “as soon as possible.”
The organisations stated that “polio vaccines are available in the region and ready for distribution in August and September, but this requires full access for humanitarian aid supplies to Gaza through all border gates and within them.”
The Gaza Strip has been polio-free for the past 25 years, according to UN data. Humanitarian workers have warned over the past 10 months that the resurgence of the disease poses another threat to children in Gaza and neighboring countries.
The disease primarily affects children under the age of five, and one in 200 cases of infection leads to incurable paralysis. Between 5 and 10 percent of those infected die due to the failure of their respiratory muscles to function, according to the World Health Organization.
The organisation stated that “as long as there is one child infected with the polio virus, children in all countries are at risk of contracting the disease.”
Since October 7, 2023, the Israeli occupation forces have been carrying out a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip, which has led to a catastrophic deterioration of the humanitarian and health conditions, due to the continuous bombing and the tight siege that prevents the arrival of basic supplies of food, water, medicine and electricity.
