UPDATE
Aug 24, 2024 12:25 PM CDT
The 10-month-old child who contracted Gaza's first reported case of polio in 25 years has been partially paralyzed as a result, the BBC reports. The infant developed paralysis in one leg but is in stable condition, officials say. Humanitarian groups are continuing to push for a weeklong pause in fighting so a vaccination campaign can be carried out; the baby who contracted polio was not vaccinated against the highly infectious virus. UN Secretary General António Guterres says "hundreds of thousands" more children in the area are at risk.
Aug 17, 2024 5:45 AM CDT
Palestinian health officials on Friday reported the first case of polio in an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in the Gaza city of Deir al-Balah, the first case in years in the coastal enclave that has been engulfed in the Israel-Hamas war since Oct. 7. After discovering the child's symptoms, tests were conducted in Jordan's capital of Amman and the case was confirmed to be polio, the health officials said. The potentially fatal, paralyzing disease mostly strikes children under the age of 5 and typically spreads through contaminated water. Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where the spread of polio has never been stopped, reports the AP.
The World Health Organization did not immediately respond to requests to confirm the case. However, US health and children's agencies have called for seven-day pauses in the fighting, starting at the end of August, to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children against polio. They said the polio virus had been discovered in wastewater in two major cities last month in Gaza, which has been polio-free for the last 25 years, according to the United Nations. In July, WHO said a variant of type 2 was discovered in wastewater samples from southern Khan Younis and central Deir al-Balah, linked to a variant of the polio virus last detected in Egypt last year. While WHO did not confirm the polio case, it said earlier on Friday that three children in Gaza were found with acute flaccid paralysis—the onset of weakness or paralysis with reduced muscle tone, a common symptom of polio.
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The children's stool samples have been sent for testing to the Jordan National Polio Laboratory, the agency said. More than 1.6 million doses of the polio vaccine are expected to arrive in Gaza by the end of August, WHO said, in time for the vaccination campaigns which would have to be conducted in two rounds. Children under 10 will be given two drops of the oral vaccine against type 2 of the polio virus. Health officials in Gaza warned they would not be able to stop the spread of polio and treat people without an urgent cease-fire in place. (The warning came as international mediators expressed hope that a cease-fire deal is within reach.)
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