Baby paralyzed in Gaza's first polio case in 25 years

DUBAI ? A 10-month-old baby in Gaza has been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first case in the territory in 25 years, the World Health Organization said on Friday. U.N. agencies appealed for urgent vaccinations of every baby in the devastated coastal enclave.

The type 2 polio virus, while not inherently more dangerous than types 1 and 3, has been responsible for most outbreaks in recent years, especially in areas with low vaccination rates.

U.N. agencies have called for Israel and Hamas to agree to a seven-day humanitarian pause in their 10-month-old war to allow vaccination campaigns to proceed in the territory.

"Polio does not distinguish between Palestinian and Israeli children," the head of the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees said on Friday in a post on X.

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"Delaying a humanitarian pause will increase the risk of spread among children," Philippe Lazzarini added.

The baby, who has lost movement in his lower left leg, is currently in stable condition, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.

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.

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Vaccinations in a war zone

Gaza's health ministry first reported the polio case in the unvaccinated 10-month-old baby a week ago in the central city of Deir Al-Balah, an often embattled area in the war.

Hamas on Aug. 16 supported a U.N. request for a seven-day pause in the fighting to vaccinate Gaza children against polio, Hamas political official Izzat al-Rishq said on Friday.

Israel has laid siege to Gaza since last October, when Islamist fighters rampaged across southern Israel, killing 1,200. An estimated 40,000 Gazans have died in Israel's ground offensive and bombardments, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel said it would facilitate the transfer of polio vaccines into Gaza for around one million children.The Israeli military's humanitarian unit said it was coordinating with Palestinians to procure 43,000 vials of vaccine ? each with multiple doses ? for delivery in Israel in the coming weeks for transfer to Gaza.

The vaccines should be sufficient for two rounds of doses for more than a million children, the Israeli military added.

Cease-fire talks sponsored by the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt have so far failed to produce a breakthrough.

As well as allowing the entry of polio specialists into Gaza, the U.N. has said a successful campaign would require transport for vaccines and refrigeration equipment at every step, as well as conditions that would allow the campaign to reach children in every area of the rubble-clogged territory.

Poliomyelitis, a highly infectious virus primarily spread through the fecal-oral route, can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.

Traces of polio virus were detected last month in sewage in Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, two areas in southern and central Gaza that have seen hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the fighting seek shelter.

Children under five are particularly at risk.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Polio returns to war-torn Gaza and a baby is paralyzed