Detection of polio virus in Gaza sewage raises risk of international spread
Hamid Jafari, the director of polio eradication at the World Health Organization (WHO), tells Al Jazeera that the detection of the polio virus in sewage in Gaza means infections are already taking place and the virus is circulating.
“The risk of transmission is intensifying in Gaza, and the risk of an international spread is consequently also high,” Jafari said.
He added that overcrowding and the lower rates of child vaccinations since the war started are raising concerns among WHO’s partner organisations.
Polio detected in Gaza sewage water, threatening new health disaster
https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/19/middleeast/israel-gaza-polio-detected-water-sewage-intl/index.html
Garbage builds up along a non-functioning sewage dump in Gaza City in May.
The highly infectious polio virus has been found in sewage samples in Gaza, putting thousands of Palestinians at risk of contracting a disease that can cause paralysis.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization (WHO) both said they had carried out tests and found samples of the virus in sewage water. “Poliovirus type 2 (VDPV2) had been identified at six locations in sewage samples collected on 23 June from Khan Younis and Deir al Balah,” WHO said Friday.
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WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said polio vaccination rates prior to the conflict were “optimal,” but that Israel’s war against Hamas had created “the perfect environment for diseases like polio to spread.”
“The decimation of the health system, lack of security, access obstruction, constant population displacement, shortages of medical supplies, poor quality of water and weakened sanitation are increasing the risk of vaccine-preventable diseases, including polio,” Tedros warned.
Wild polio was eradicated from Gaza more than 25 years ago, with pre-war vaccination coverage reaching 95% in 2022, according to WHO.
Poliovirus can emerge when poor vaccination coverage allows the weakened form of the orally administered vaccine virus strain to mutate into a stronger version capable of causing paralysis, a spokesman from WHO’s global Polio Eradication program said.
Six killed in Israeli attacks in Nuseirat camp
At least six Palestinians have been killed in two separate attacks in the central Gaza refugee camp, according to the Wafa news agency.
Four were killed in an attack on a house in Nuseirat.
Two others were killed where a group of people were targeted on Al-Rashid Street to the west of the camp, according to the news agency.
