Palestinian health ministry detects first case of polio in Gaza, statement says
Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. It mainly affects children under the age of 5.
The Palestinian health ministry said in a statement on Friday that it has detected the first confirmed case of polio in the Gaza Strip in the city of Deir Al-Balah for a 10-month-old baby who had not received any polio vaccination dose.
Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. It mainly affects children under the age of 5.
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The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday (July 23) that there was a high risk of the polio virus spreading across the Gaza Strip and beyond its borders due to the dire health and sanitation situation in the war-ravaged Palestinian enclave.
Ayadil Saparbekov, team lead for health emergencies at WHO in Gaza and the West Bank, said circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 had been isolated from environmental samples from sewage in Gaza.
"There is a high risk of spreading of the circulating vaccine-derived polio virus in Gaza, not only because of the detection but because of the very dire situation with the water sanitation," he told reporters in Geneva via video link from Jerusalem.
"It may also spill over internationally, at a very high point."
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