Poliovirus found in Gaza sewage, says Israel-Gaza health ministries
Children stand atop a small hill near tents at a makeshift shelter in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip
Poliovirus has been detected in sewage samples in Gaza,currently engulfed in a devastating war, health authorities in the Hamas-run territory and Israel reported on Thursday (July 19).
The statement came after a European activist group released a report stating the Gaza Strip is drowning in hundreds of thousands of tonnes of human waste and rubble from the war.
The Gaza ministry warned that thousands of people in the crowded tent cities housing those displaced by the war are now at risk of contracting polio, a highly infectious disease that can cause deformities and paralysis.
It is worth mentioning here, UN health agencies in 1980 started a global campaign to eradicate polio, which repeatedly spread through sewage and contaminated water, but there has been a revival in recent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
According to the health ministry, the tests carried out with the UN children's agency, UNICEF, confirmed the presence of poliovirus in the territory, which has been suffering the deadly attacks from Israel.
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The Israeli health ministry informed, poliovirus type 2 had been found in Gaza sewage samples tested in an Israeli laboratory.
The sewage that now flows between the tents used by tens of thousands of displaced Gazans across the presence of poliovirus points towards a new health disaster," the ministry said.
Notably, UN agencies have repetitively warned of the risk of cholera and other more serious diseases becoming epidemics.
Over 60 Palestinians killed in Israeli airstrikes
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Stripkilled at least 60 people, health officials reported on Tuesday (July 16).
The casualties included those from an attack on a school sheltering displaced individuals and another in an Israeli-designated "humanitarian zone."
17 people were killed in a bombing near a petrol station in Mawasi, an area on the Mediterranean shoreline packed with hundreds of thousands of displaced people that Israel had previously declared an evacuation zone.
While another 16 were killed in a strike that targeted the UN-run al-Awda school in central Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp.
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claimed that Hamas militants were present at the school.
But there was no immediate comment on the strike in Mawasi. However, the army reported that the air force targeted around 40 sites in Gaza on Tuesday, including sniping and observation posts, military structures, and buildings rigged with explosives.
(With inputs from agencies)