A looming health disaster for displaced Palestinians living in tent camps where sewage flows freely and pollutes the water.
The polio virus is Densely populated Gaza StripThis puts “thousands” of Palestinians at risk of contracting a highly contagious disease that can cause paralysis.
The Gaza Ministry of Health, in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), announced that it had detected “components of poliovirus type 2.”
“The detection of the polio-causing virus in wastewater portends a true health disaster, putting thousands of residents at risk of polio infection,” the commission said in a statement on Thursday.
The ministry said the virus could be found in sewage “flowing and collecting between the tents of displaced people”, posing a risk of contamination of drinking water already in short supply in densely populated areas.
Authorities in Gaza’s central city of Deir el-Bala predicted this week that the closure of sewage pumping and treatment plants would lead to “roads flooded with sewage” and “the spread of disease.”
“We’re talking about a very grim medical reality,” said Al Jazeera’s Tarek Abu Azoum, reporting from the depot, where 700,000 people have arrived to seek safety from fighting and airstrikes.
He said Israeli forces had intensified attacks on “wells, sanitation facilities and wastewater treatment” and blocked the delivery of “essential hygiene products” to the Gaza Strip, creating “a favorable environment for the spread of various diseases.”
Paediatric intensive care physician Dr Taniya Haji Hassan told Al Jazeera that the presence of the virus in sewage is a “ticking time bomb”.
“Usually when you have a polio patient, you isolate them, make sure they use an unused toilet, keep them away from other people, [but] “That’s impossible,” she said.
“Refugee camps are now crowded with people who have not been vaccinated for at least the past nine months, including children who would have been vaccinated against polio, adults who should have received booster vaccinations during an outbreak, and health workers,” she added.
Haji Hassan said the spread of the disease among health workers would be “devastating,” and that the health system was “extremely vulnerable to direct attacks, kidnappings of health workers, [the] “The murder of medical workers”
Earlier, the Israeli Health Ministry said it had found evidence of “poliovirus type 2 components” in sewage samples taken in the Gaza Strip.
He ordered the Israeli army to vaccinate all soldiers in the Gaza Strip and those about to enter, and recommended that those who have already been vaccinated receive a booster shot.
The discovery of the poliovirus comes after a European activist group released a report saying the Gaza Strip is “drowning” in hundreds of thousands of tonnes of human waste and debris from the war.
The United Nations health agency launched a global campaign to eradicate polio in 1980. Polio, which is most commonly spread through sewage and contaminated water, has resurfaced in Afghanistan and Pakistan in recent years.
