Gaza records first polio case in 25 years as UN seeks ceasefire to vaccinate kids
Infant from Strip confirmed to have disease hours after World Health Organization and UNICEF announce plans to inoculate 640,000 children during two week-long truces
GENEVA, Switzerland — Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian Authority health ministry said on Friday, after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.
Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.
According to the United Nations, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory’s wastewater in June.
“Doctors suspected the presence of symptoms consistent with polio,” the health ministry said. “After conducting the necessary tests in the Jordanian capital, Amman, the infection was confirmed.”
The case emerged shortly after Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children.
The UN’s health and children’s agencies said they had drawn up detailed plans to reach children across the besieged Palestinian territory, starting later this month.
But that would require pauses in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, the World Health Organization and UNICEF said.
They said they were planning two rounds of a vaccination campaign across the Gaza Strip, starting in late August, against type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).
“WHO and UNICEF request all parties to the conflict to implement humanitarian pauses in the Gaza Strip for seven days to allow for two rounds of vaccination campaigns to take place,” they said.
A WHO spokeswoman said they were asking for seven days during each round.
“These pauses in fighting would allow children and families to safely reach health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccination,” the statement said.
“Without the humanitarian pauses, the delivery of the campaign will not be possible.”
“The Gaza Strip has been polio-free for the last 25 years,” the WHO and UNICEF said. “Its reemergence, which the humanitarian community has warned about for the last 10 months, represents yet another threat to the children in the Gaza Strip and neighboring countries.
“A ceasefire is the only way to ensure public health security in the Gaza Strip and the region.”
Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq said in a statement on Friday that the group supported the request for week-long ceasefires. There was no comment from Israel.
During each round of the campaign, the health ministry in Gaza, alongside UN agencies, would provide “two drops of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to more than 640,000 children under 10 years of age.”
More than 1.6 million doses of nOPV2 were expected to transit through Ben Gurion Airport “by the end of August,” the statement added.
Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious. It can cause deformities and paralysis and is potentially fatal. The disease mainly affects children under the age of five.
War broke out on October 7 when Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israel, killing some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251. It is believed that 111 hostages remain in Gaza, including the bodies of 39 confirmed dead by the IDF.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 40,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August, and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Times of Israel Staff and Reuters contributed to this report.
