WHO says 'high risk' of polio virus spreading across war-ravaged Gaza Strip
File photo.
The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday (July 23) said that there was a high risk ofthe polio virus spreading across the Gaza Strip and beyond its bordersdue to the dire health and sanitation situation amid the ongoing war between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas.
Addressing a press conference, WHO's team lead for health emergencies in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, Ayadil Saparbekov said thatcirculating 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,"Saparbekov said.
UN teams to arrive in Gaza on Thursday
Saparbekov said that the WHO and the UNICEF teams were scheduled to arrive in Gaza on Thursday to collect human stool samples as part of a risk assessment related to the discovery of the virus.
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The top WHO official pointed out that the assessment, which would be completed by the end of the week, willallow health officials to issue recommendations, "including the need for a mass vaccination campaign as well as what kind of vaccine should be used and what the age group of the population that will need to be vaccinated."
The war between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip began in October last year.
Health officials, as pera report by the news agency Reuters, have warned that without proper health services, the people of the Palestinian enclavewereparticularly vulnerable to outbreaks of disease.
Israel to offer polio vaccine to soldiers in Gaza
The WHO's warning about the spread of polio in Gaza came two days after Israel saidit would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in Gaza, Reuters reported.
The military also said that with the cooperation of international groups, enough vaccines had been brought in to cover more than one million people in Gaza, which has a total population of around 2.3 million.
(With inputs from agencies)