A 10-month-old Gazan boy who was infected with the type 2 poliovirus in August, leaving his body partially paralyzed, is the first polio case in the region in 25 years.
Although he did not become infected with the wild poliovirus (which killed or paralyzed more than 500,000 people a year before a vaccine was developed), the vaccine-derived variant paralyzed one of his legs, and the medical community sounded the alarm.
Every polio case around the world is tracked. In 2023, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recorded 12 cases of wild poliovirus and 524 cases of vaccine-derived poliovirus in 32 countries. The Gaza victims were among the thousands of children who have not been vaccinated because of Israel’s war against Hamas.
Polio is a highly contagious virus that is transmitted by person-to-person contact or through contaminated food or water. Poor sanitation conditions, such as those in Gaza, can exacerbate the spread of the virus, especially among children who are unvaccinated or not fully immunized.
The speed with which Western countries pushed Israel to negotiate a humanitarian moratorium to carry out its vaccination campaign in Gaza shows the gravity of the problem. Boosting the immunity of 640,500 children under the age of 10 was critical to halting local circulation of the virus, avoiding cross-border spread and reducing the risk of local recurrence.
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