DUBAI: A 10-month-old baby in war-shattered Gaza has been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years, the World Health Organization said on Friday, with UN agencies appealing for urgent vaccinations of every baby.
The type 2 virus (cVDPV2), while not inherently more dangerous than types 1 and 3, has been responsible for most outbreaks in recent years, especially in areas with low vaccination rates.
UN agencies have called for Israel and Gaza’s dominant Palestinian militant group Hamas to agree to a seven-day humanitarian pause in their 10-month-old war to allow vaccination campaigns to proceed in the territory.
“Polio does not distinguish between Palestinian and Israeli children,” the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Friday in a post on X.
“Delaying a humanitarian pause will increase the risk of spread among children,” Philippe Lazzarini added.
The baby, who has lost movement in his lower left leg, is currently in stable condition, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement.
The WHO has announced that two rounds of a polio vaccination campaign are set to begin in late August and September 2024 across the densely populated Gaza Strip.
With its health services widely damaged or destroyed by fighting, and raw sewage spreading amid a breakdown in sanitation infrastructure, Gaza’s population is particularly vulnerable to outbreaks of disease.
Challenge of vaccinations in war zone
Gaza’s health ministry first reported the polio case in the unvaccinated 10-month-old baby a week ago in the central city of Deir Al-Balah, an often embattled area in the war.
Hamas on Aug. 16 supported a UN request for a seven-day pause in the fighting to vaccinate Gaza children against polio, Hamas political bureau official Izzat Al-Rishq said on Friday.
Israel, which has laid siege to Gaza since last October and whose ground offensive and bombardments have levelled much of the territory, said days later it would facilitate the transfer of polio vaccines into Gaza for around one million children.
The Israeli military’s humanitarian unit (COGAT) said it was coordinating with Palestinians to procure 43,000 vials of vaccine — each with multiple doses — for delivery in Israel in the coming weeks for transfer to Gaza.
The vaccines should be sufficient for two rounds of doses for more than a million children, COGAT added.
As well as allowing the entry of polo specialists into Gaza, the UN has said a successful campaign would require transport for vaccines and refrigeration equipment at every step as well as conditions that would allow the campaign to reach children in every area of the rubble-clogged territory.
Poliomyelitis, a highly infectious virus primarily spread through the fecal-oral route, can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.
Traces of polio virus were detected last month in sewage in Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis, two areas in southern and central Gaza that have seen hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the fighting seek shelter.
Children under five are particularly at risk.
Baby paralyzed in Gaza’s first case of type 2 polio for 25 years, WHO says
https://arab.news/vjrgz
Baby paralyzed in Gaza’s first case of type 2 polio for 25 years, WHO says
- The WHO has announced that two rounds of a polio vaccination campaign are set to begin in late August and September 2024
- Gaza’s health ministry first reported the polio case in the unvaccinated 10-month-old baby a week ago
Iran launches new attacks at Gulf Arab countries as it keeps up pressure on the region
- In addition to firing missiles and drones at Israel and American bases in the region, Iran has also been targeting energy infrastructure
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Iran launched new attacks Tuesday at Gulf Arab countries as it keeps up pressure on the region, while five pro-Iranian militants were killed in an airstrike northern Iraq.
Incoming missile sirens sounded early in the morning in Dubai in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, while Saudi Arabia said it had destroyed two drones over its oil-rich eastern region and Kuwait’s National Guard said it had show down six drones.
In addition to firing missiles and drones at Israel and American bases in the region, Iran has also been targeting energy infrastructure which, combined with its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, has sent oil prices soaring.
Brent crude, the international standard, spiked to nearly $120 on Monday before falling back but was still at around $90 a barrel on Tuesday, nearly 24 percent higher than when the war started on Feb. 28.
US President Donald Trump, who has previously said that the war could last for a month or longer, on Tuesday sought to downplay growing fears that it could be a long-term regional conflict, saying it was “going to be a short-term excursion.”
Trump sends contradictory messages as Tehran says it’s prepared for a long war
The war has choked off major supplies of oil and gas to world markets and sent fuel prices rising across the US The fighting has also led foreigners to flee from business hubs and prompted millions to seek shelter as bombs hit military bases, government buildings, oil and water installations, hotels and at least one school.
Iran has effectively stopped tankers from using the Strait of Hormuz, the shipping lane between the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman — the gateway to the Indian Ocean — through which 20 percent of the world’s oil is carried. Attacks on merchant ships near the strait have killed at least seven sailors, according to the International Maritime Organization.
In a post on social media on Tuesday, Trump seemed not to acknowledge that, saying that “If Iran does anything that stops the flow of Oil within the Strait of Hormuz, they will be hit by the United States of America TWENTY TIMES HARDER than they have been hit thus far.”
In an apparent response to Trump’s remarks published in Iranian state media, a spokesperson for the paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Ali Mohammad Naini, said “Iran will determine when the war ends.”
Kamal Kharazi, foreign policy adviser to the office of the supreme leader, told CNN on Monday that Iran is prepared for a long war. He said he sees no “room for diplomacy anymore” unless economic pressure prompts other countries to intervene and stop the “aggression of Americans and Israelis against Iran.”
Airstrike on Iran-linked militia in Iraq kills five
As the conflict has spread against the region, Israel has launched multiple attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iranian-linked militia has responded by firing missiles into Israel.
Pro-Iran militias in Iraq have also launched attacks at US bases in the country since the beginning of the conflict.
Early Tuesday, one of those militias, the 40th Brigade of the Popular Mobilization Forces in the city of Kirkuk, was hit with an airstrike that killed at least five militants and wounded four others, according to officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to brief reporters.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the strikes.
Since the war began, at least 1,230 people have been killed in Iran, at least 397 in Lebanon and 11 in Israel, according to officials.
A total of seven US service members have been killed.
Financial markets, which swung wildly in recent days, opened the day Tuesday in Asia with early gains, building on late optimism in the US
