Gaza records first polio case in 25 years as UN urges vaccinations

Gaza has recorded its first polio case in 25 years, the Palestinian health ministry said on Friday, after UN chief Antonio Guterres called for pauses in the Israel-Hamas war to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children.

Tests in Jordan confirmed the disease in an unvaccinated 10-month-old from the central Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Ramallah said.

According to the United Nations, Gaza, now in its 11th month of war, has not registered a polio case for 25 years, although type 2 poliovirus was detected in samples collected from the territory's wastewater in June.

"Doctors suspected the presence of symptoms consistent with polio," the health ministry said. "After conducting the necessary tests in the Jordanian capital, Amman, the infection was confirmed."

The case emerged shortly after Guterres called for two seven-day breaks in the Gaza war to vaccinate more than 640,000 children.

Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious. It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.

The UN health and children's agencies said they had made detailed plans to reach children across the besieged Palestinian territory and could start this month.

But that would require pauses in the 10-month old war between Israel and Hamas, they said.

"Preventing and containing the spread of polio will take a massive, coordinated and urgent effort," Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

"I am appealing to all parties to provide concrete assurances right away guaranteeing humanitarian pauses for the campaign."

The World Health Organization and UN children's fund UNICEF said they were planning two seven-day vaccination drives across the Gaza Strip, starting in late August, against type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).

Last month, it was announced that type 2 poliovirus had been detected in samples collected in Gaza on June 23.

"These pauses in fighting would allow children and families to safely reach health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccination," the agencies said in a statement said.

Regional public health issue

After 25 years without polio, its re-emergence in the Gaza Strip would threaten neighbouring countries, it added.

"A ceasefire is the only way to ensure public health security in the Gaza Strip and the region."

During each round of the campaign, the health ministry in Gaza, alongside UN agencies, would provide "two drops of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to more than 640,000 children under 10 years of age".

More than 1.6 million doses of nOPV2 were expected to transit through Israel's Ben Gurion Airport "by the end of August", the statement added.

The war was triggered by Hamas's unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,198 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.

On Thursday, the toll from Israel's retaliatory military campaign in Gaza passed 40,000, according to the health ministry in Gaza, which does not provide a breakdown of civilian and militant casualties.