The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday again expressed “great concern” about the possibility of an epidemic in the Gaza Strip, especially after poliovirus type 2 (polio) was isolated in wastewater samples.
“I am very concerned. I am extremely concerned, and it is not just polio. There could be other infectious disease epidemics,” said Ayadil Saparbekov, head of the WHO health emergencies team in the Palestinian territories. “Hepatitis A was confirmed last year, and now we could have polio,” and “up to 14,000 people (from Gaza) could” need medical care, he told a news conference.
Polio is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus (poliovirus) that attacks the nervous system and can cause permanent paralysis within hours.
On July 16, the Global Polio Laboratory Network isolated poliovirus type 2, derived from the vaccine strain, from six environmental samples.
An analysis of these individual cases by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, US, shows that there are “genetic links” between them and that they are also linked to poliovirus type 2, derived from the vaccine strain that was circulated in Egypt in 2023, the WHO said.
conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, US, shows that there are “genetic links” between them and that they are also linked to poliovirus type 2, derived from the vaccine strain, circulating in Egypt in 2023, the WHO said.
The UN agency thus reiterates that there is a “high risk” of poliovirus spreading in the Gaza Strip and internationally “if a rapid response to this epidemic is not taken.”
“We have not yet taken samples from people due to the lack of equipment and laboratory capacity to test these samples,” Saparbekov emphasized.
A team from WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) that will travel to Gaza next Thursday is expected to collect human samples that will then be sent to Jordan.
At the same time, WHO and the organization’s partners are assessing the scale of the spread of the poliovirus.
Saparbekov hopes that the recommendations can be published on Sunday, but “given the current restrictions in terms of hygiene and sanitation in the Gaza Strip, it will be very difficult for the population to follow the advice to wash their hands and drink boiled water.”
The war in Gaza was triggered on October 7 last year by an unprecedented attack by Hamas commandos infiltrating southern Israel, which killed 1,197 people, most of them civilians, according to the Agence France Presse, according to official Israeli figures.
In response, Israel launched a large-scale air and ground offensive on Gaza that has killed more than 39,000 people, mostly civilians, according to the Hamas-run Gaza government’s Health Ministry.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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