Antonio Guterres said the Gaza Strip was in the grip of a “humanitarian collapse” and urged a ceasefire to allow aid agencies to deliver 1.6 million doses of the nOPV2 polio vaccine to the territory.
advertisementPalestinian health authorities reported the first case of polio in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, in a 10-month-old child who had not been vaccinated.
Jordanian health authorities said tests were conducted in the Jordanian capital Amman after the child’s symptoms were discovered and the diagnosis was confirmed to be polio.
It is the first case of the disease reported in years in the coastal area, which has been devastated by the Israeli-Hamas war since October last year.
This potentially fatal paralytic disease mainly affects children under the age of five and is usually spread through contaminated water.
The only countries where the spread of polio has never stopped are Pakistan and Afghanistan.
On Friday, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called for a seven-day ceasefire to allow agencies to roll out a vaccination campaign across the Gaza Strip.
“We know what an effective polio vaccination campaign looks like. Given the devastation in Gaza, we will need at least 95 percent coverage in each of the two rounds of the campaign to stop the spread of polio and reduce the number of cases,” he said.
“I appeal to all parties to immediately provide concrete guarantees to ensure a humanitarian halt to the campaign.”
Two doses of polio vaccination are scheduled to be administered in late August and September to prevent the spread of variant 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).
During each round of the campaign, the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and partners, will provide two drops of the new oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to more than 640,000 children under the age of 10.
More than 1.6 million doses of nOPV2, used to prevent the spread of cVDPV2, will be delivered to Gaza. 708 teams will carry out vaccinations in hospitals, field hospitals and primary health centers in each municipality. Approximately 2,700 health workers, including mobile teams and community support workers, will support delivery in both waves of the campaign.
Poliovirus was first detected in environmental samples from Khan Yunis and Deir al-Balah in Gaza in July. The UN says Gaza has been polio-free for 25 years.
But polio is not the only health problem facing Gaza. According to the Palestinian Health Authority, more than 40,000 people have died from Israeli airstrikes and other attacks since the conflict escalated in October 2023.
Only 16 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals are currently partially operational, and other health services are depleted. According to Oxfam, the Israeli army has destroyed 70 percent of all wastewater treatment plants and sewage pumps in Gaza, meaning many streets in Gaza are flooded with untreated sewage, creating a fertile environment for disease to spread.
This is especially true during the hot summer months when mosquitoes and other bugs thrive and food spoils more quickly.
As a result of the conflict, Gaza residents suffer from health problems such as respiratory infections, diarrhea, scabies and lice, skin rashes, chickenpox, jaundice and hepatitis A, which are unlikely to spread beyond Gaza, which is virtually isolated from the rest of the region.
