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Advocates for Palestinian rights are demanding that the Biden administration take urgent action to stop a potential outbreak of polio in Gaza after the virus that causes the deadly disease was found in Gaza’s wastewater, threatening an epidemic that would be nothing short of catastrophic.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) says that Biden bears responsibility to respond to the crisis after funding Israel’s destruction of Gaza’s health and sanitation systems, which has created conditions ripe for a deadly epidemic.
“Having enabled the wholesale destruction of civilian infrastructure and medical facilities in Gaza, the Biden administration has a duty to ensure that polio vaccines reach all those who need to be vaccinated,” said CAIR communications director Ibrahim Hooper in a statement Sunday.
“This is only possible with an immediate and permanent ceasefire to both stop the genocide and prevent the outbreak of polio and other diseases,” Hooper went on. “The suffering of the Palestinian people must come to an end.”
Palestinian health authorities and the World Health Organization (WHO) announced last week that poliovirus, the virus that causes polio, has been detected in six different samples across Gaza. Officials have not detected any cases of paralysis stemming from polio, but the detection of the virus means that it could rapidly break out into an epidemic, experts warned, as the disease can spread undetected for weeks among people who are asymptomatic.
Israel has destroyed the infrastructure necessary to address an epidemic in Gaza while creating conditions ripe for disease. Reports have found that Palestinians are “drowning” in sewage due to Israel’s systematic destruction of the sanitation system, with wastewater filling the streets of Gaza and Palestinians sheltering close to mountains of solid waste that attract bugs and vermin. At the same time, only a fraction of hospital beds are operational.
Israeli officials appear to be aware of the extreme health risk posed by the presence of the virus, and announced on Sunday that they are starting a non-mandatory campaign to ensure that Israeli soldiers are vaccinated against polio. Officials said nothing about ensuring that Palestinians are immune to the virus.
A group of Israeli public health professors has also called for a ceasefire in order to prevent the spread of polio. In an op-ed in Haaretz, the group warned that the virus is especially deadly for babies and that, if the epidemic is not stopped, Israel is not only risking thousands of lives of Palestinians but also the lives of everyone in the region, as viruses “know no borders.”
“Those at greatest risk are Gazan babies and Israeli infants, who have not completed their required vaccinations due to health service disruptions or their young age,” the op-ed said. “They are not guilty of any crime, other than the dangerous circumstances they were born into.”
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