‘Polio could claim more lives than Israeli war’

A Palestinian child, carried by his mother, receives treatment at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, yesterday.

Director general of primary healthcare in the Gaza Strip Dr Mousa Abed has warned that the spread of polio could claim many more lives than those lost due to the ongoing Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip since October 7.
Speaking to Qatar News Agency (QNA), Abed expressed his fear that more diseases and epidemics could breakout due to Gaza being a fertile environment in which all risk factors converge.
The director general noted that the Strip was declared an epidemic area in mid-June after the poliovirus was detected in sewage water in the cities of Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis, which heralds a real disaster that could befall the area.
Friends of the Patient Society Hospital director Dr Said Salah warned against the dangers of polio spreading in Gaza, after it had been eradicated from the Palestinian territories for 45 years due to regular vaccinations.
Salah told QNA that the return of the virus threatens people’s lives under the difficult conditions in Gaza and due to the ease of transmission. He emphasised that the resurgence of the virus is extremely dangerous and could result in patient deaths.
The director of the Friends of the Patient Society Hospital called on the World Health Organisation to take action to contain the virus and provide the necessary vaccinations to prevent its spread, noting that most residents of Gaza are currently suffering from weakened immunity due to famine and lack of nutritious food which could have helped their bodies combat disease.
This comes after the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the first confirmed case of polio in Deir Al-Balah in central Gaza Strip, involving a 10-month-old child who had not received any vaccinations against the disease.
The ministry indicated that the virus has resurfaced in Gaza due to the challenging health conditions in the Strip, the spread of infectious diseases, the lack of personal hygiene supplies and clean drinking water, with sewage flowing through streets and among displaced persons’ tents.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has also warned of the worsening humanitarian situation in Gaza with the spread of the poliovirus threatening hundreds of thousands of children. He said that the UN is preparing to launch a crucial vaccination campaign in the Strip for over 640,000 children under the age of ten. He called for a humanitarian ceasefire to allow the UN to carry out the vaccination campaign.