Gaza – The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, confirmed on Friday that delaying the achievement of a humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip, which is being subjected to a devastating Israeli war, “will increase the risk of the spread of polio.”
“It is very sad that the World Health Organization has confirmed that a 10-month-old baby in Gaza has been paralyzed by polio,” Lazzarini said on the X platform.
He explained that this case is “the first (in the sector) in more than 25 years.”
On August 16, the Palestinian Ministry of Health announced the first confirmed case of polio in the Gaza Strip.
She stated that the case was recorded in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, “for a 10-month-old child who had not received any polio vaccination dose.”
UNRWA Commissioner said, “Polio will not differentiate between Palestinian and Israeli children, and delaying the humanitarian truce will increase the risk of the disease spreading among children.”
He stressed that “bringing vaccines to Gaza is not enough, and for vaccines to have an effect, they must end up in the mouths of every child under the age of ten.”
Lazzarini explained that UNRWA medical teams will provide vaccines in its clinics and through its mobile health teams in the Strip.
He added: “Since the beginning of the war, 80 percent of children across Gaza have received vaccines against various childhood diseases.”
On Wednesday, 20 international aid organizations and health workers stressed the need to deliver polio vaccines to Gaza “as soon as possible.”
“Polio vaccines are in the area and ready for distribution in August and September, but this requires full access for humanitarian aid supplies to and from Gaza through all border gates,” the organizations said.
The disease primarily affects children under the age of five, and one in 200 cases of infection leads to incurable paralysis. Between 5 and 10 percent of those infected with the paralysis die because their respiratory muscles stop functioning, according to the World Health Organization.
The United Nations says on its website that “as long as there is one child infected with poliovirus, children in all countries are at risk of contracting the disease.”
Anatolia
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2024-08-24 00:18:10
