The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza has declared the Palestinian territory a “polio epidemic zone”, accusing Israel’s military operation of destroying health infrastructure, leading to a reemergence of the virus.
The ministry said the CPV2 variant of the virus was detected in sewage samples collected from the southern Khan Yunis region and the central governorate.
It did not say whether any cases had been found in humans, but said the presence of the virus “poses a health threat to residents of the Gaza Strip and neighbouring countries and a setback to the global polio eradication programme”.
The wild version of the virus is now endemic only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but a type of vaccine containing a small amount of weakened but live polio still causes occasional outbreaks elsewhere.
UN agencies recently said that vaccine-derived type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from sewage.
“The Israeli aggression led to lack of access to potable water, destruction of sanitation infrastructure, accumulation of tons of waste and lack of food security” which led to the resurgence of the virus, the ministry said.
On Tuesday, the World Health Organization said it was “facing a very problematic situation”.
“The presence of vaccine-derived poliovirus in sewage indicates that it is still present somewhere in people,” World Health Organization spokesman Christian Lindmeier told reporters.
“But still, about 75 percent of people infected with polio don’t show any symptoms.
“That means it’s probably in the population, but it doesn’t necessarily mean we’ll see an outbreak of cases.”
He said a campaign is needed to distribute vaccines in the Gaza Strip.
“It is not enough to just deliver it (the vaccine) to Ben Gurion Airport and then hopefully to Gaza. It has to reach the people,” Lindmeier said.
Israeli bombing and ground assault have devastated large parts of Gaza, displacing most of its 2.4 million population.
The war in Gaza began on October 7 after Hamas launched attacks on Israel, resulting in the deaths of 1,197 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official Israeli figures.
Hamas has also taken 251 people prisoner, of whom 111 are still held in Gaza, 39 of whom the military says are dead.
Israel’s campaign has so far killed 39,400 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry, though the ministry did not give a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)