A Palestinian baby in Gaza has been partly paralysed from polio in the first case there for 25 years.
The head of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, confirmed that the affected infant had lost movement in his lower left leg, but was in a stable condition, The Guardian reported.
The WHO has announced that two rounds of a polio vaccination campaign are set to begin in late August and September 2024 across the densely populated Gaza Strip.
With its health services widely damaged or destroyed by fighting, and raw sewage spreading amid a breakdown in sanitation infrastructure, Gaza's population is particularly vulnerable to outbreaks of disease, The Reuters reported.
In a recent meeting of the UN, Riyad H. Mansour, Permanent Observer for the State of Palestine, noted that Gaza had been polio-free for the last 25 years. But, now it is under threat of this terrible disease that causes paralysis and death.
“Gaza does not need more paralysis and death,” it needs life to be restored, and it needs it now, he said. Voicing support for the Secretary-General’s proposal for an urgent vaccination campaign, he stressed that any obstruction of this effort is proof of Israel’s genocidal intent. The ultimate vaccine for polio is peace and an immediate humanitarian ceasefire, he added.
According to The Guardian report, more than 1.6m doses of vaccine against poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2), the variant of the disease involved, are due to be delivered to Gaza for an immunisation campaign in two rounds. The first round is due to begin on August 31 and the second at the end of September or beginning of October.
The refrigeration equipment required to keep the vaccine at the right temperature (2-8C) entered Gaza through the Kerem Shalom gate on Friday, according to the UN children’s humanitarian agency, Unicef.
The UN is appealing to Israel and Hamas for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow humanitarian workers to carry out the immunisation campaign, The Guardian added.