The UN has confirmed that a baby in Gaza has paralysis from the polio virus — the first recorded case of the disease in Gaza in 25 years due to Israel’s genocide and disease campaign against Palestinians.
UN agencies have publicly confirmed the case first reported by the Gaza Health Ministry earlier this week. Gaza health officials had declared a polio epidemic in late July after poliovirus was detected in multiple water samples gathered across the Strip.
The baby is 10 months old — meaning it was born just as Israel was beginning its genocide — and has paralysis in the lower left leg, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Thursday. The baby is in stable condition, Tedros said.
Tedros added that health officials have been able to confirm that the virus infecting the baby is linked to the one found in wastewater samples in June. Experts have warned that the disease will spread to other nearby regions if not contained.
“Polio will not make the distinction between Palestinian and Israeli children. Delaying a humanitarian pause will increase the risk of spread among children,” warned Philippe Lazzarini, commissioner-general for the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
The reemergence of the disease in Gaza is caused by Israel’s relentless assault on sanitation services in the Gaza Strip.
Polio is spread through people consuming food or water contaminated with fecal matter — and for months, Israel has systematically destroyed sanitation and water infrastructure in Gaza. Raw sewage fills the streets of Gaza, while children are forced to drink water from puddles and walk through pools of contaminated water, further increasing their risk of contracting diseases.
Polio cannot be cured, and paralysis from the disease can never be reversed. Polio can also cause complications later in life, even decades later, weakening muscles or paralyzing other parts of the body. The type of polio detected in Gaza, poliovirus type 2, was declared eradicated worldwide in 2015, meaning that many children and babies in Gaza have not been vaccinated against the disease and are at risk of contracting it.
UN agencies and officials are calling for two week-long cessations of hostilities — or a permanent ceasefire — so that aid groups can carry out a vaccine drive to ensure children across the region are protected from the virus.
The UN says that it is planning to launch a vaccine drive at the end of the month regardless of a ceasefire, which is not likely to happen due to opposition from Israel, but that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to reach everyone who is unvaccinated.
If polio were to spread across Gaza’s children, it would even further jeopardize the young generation at a time when Israel is working to destroy their futures — when the Israeli military isn’t killing them outright. The Israeli military is well aware of the risk of polio; it announced shortly after polio was first detected in the region that it would be offering vaccines to its soldiers, while saying nothing about doing the same for Palestinians under their occupation and genocide.
Humanitarian groups have also raised concerns that polio is not the only risk. Conditions are also ripe for cholera, which is spread in the same way as polio and would likely be extremely deadly in Gaza, where Israel has destroyed the health system.
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