and othersLike many in Gaza, Eid Al-Attar, a teacher from the north of the strip, now spends his days searching for enough food and water to feed his family. Forced to flee eight times since war broke out between Israel and Hamas in October, the 42-year-old has done his best to protect his five children from the conflict. Now the Palestinian territories face a new danger: polio, a highly contagious and potentially deadly disease.
“We cannot protect our children. We risk death at any time because of the constant bombings and insecurity. And we cannot protect them from diseases,” he said in Deir al-Balah on Sunday, at the launch of a UN-led vaccination campaign.
“We live in tents that offer no protection, there is no medicine, there is rubbish everywhere and the roads are filled with sewage.”
Israel's bombing campaign in Gaza has devastated the Strip's health system, with 31 of the Strip's 36 hospitals damaged or destroyed, according to the World Health Organization. About 90 percent of the 2.3 million people living in the Gaza Strip have been displaced, with the majority living in overcrowded, unsanitary makeshift camps. Hepatitis, pneumonia, dysentery and other diarrheal diseases, scabies, lice and debilitating rashes are already widespread, the WHO said.
The death toll from the disease, of which the Health Ministry has recorded more than 40,000 victims in Hamas-controlled areas, is unclear, but last week Gaza recorded its first case of type 2 polio in a quarter century, making one of health workers' worst fears a reality: the contagious disease can cause paralysis and death, especially in infants and young children.
Polio was eradicated from the Gaza Strip in 1999, but a strain of polio was detected in routine sewage testing in July. It is believed to have come from the oral polio vaccine, which contains a weakened live virus that can spread to vaccinated or infected people in rare cases. evolve into a new infectious form.
The first case was reported last week, a 10-month-old boy with one paralyzed leg. Because of the war, he had not received his usual childhood vaccinations. The WHO says there are probably already hundreds of people who are infected but have no symptoms, putting hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza at risk.
A highly complex vaccination campaign led by the United Nations and local health authorities is now underway to prevent polio from resurrecting in new generations.
To prevent the disease from spreading, at least 90 percent of Gaza's 640,000 children under 10 need to be given two drops of the oral vaccine in two doses, four weeks apart — a difficult target in a war zone where the situation can change quickly.
Hamas and Israel have agreed to a humanitarian pause in fighting from 6 am to 3 pm over the next few days. During this time, vaccination teams will aim to visit 160 sites, starting in central Gaza and moving to more hard-to-reach areas. Damaged or destroyed roads make it difficult for medical workers to move, and aid workers and transport have been hit by Israeli bombardment.
Last week, Israeli forces struck a convoy carrying food and fuel to a hospital in Rafah, killing four people, according to American Refugees for Near East Syria (ANERA). Israel said it targeted militants who had intercepted the convoy, but ANERA and witnesses denied there were any armed fighters in the area.
Israel allowed about 1.3 million doses of the vaccine into the Gaza Strip last month, and they are currently being stored in a refrigerated warehouse in the central city of Deir al-Balah. Another 400,000 doses are due to arrive in the Strip shortly.
“Israel attaches great importance to preventing a polio epidemic in the Gaza Strip, including with a view to preventing the spread of the disease in the territory,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement last week.
With all existing cold chain storage facilities destroyed, fuel shortages also pose a major challenge in providing power to generators that keep the vaccines cool. Khalil Abu Kasmiya, director-general of the Ministry of Health in Deir al-Balah, said he and his team wake up regularly during the night to ensure that the temperature in refrigerators is stable and that ice packs do not melt. “Since the first case of polio, the Ministry of Health has been doing its best to play its role,” he said.
Unlike many other international efforts to alleviate suffering in Gaza, the polio vaccine rollout has so far gone smoothly: 72,600 children were vaccinated on the first day of the operation, according to the Gaza Ministry of Health. And efforts to repair the cold chain system will hopefully allow routine vaccinations to begin once the polio campaign ends.
“We are all suffering so much and I'm glad there is one thing I can do to protect my children,” said Nabil Al-Hasanat, 50, a father of two daughters aged six and five months.
But the underlying humanitarian crisis remains, and there are no signs of a breakthrough in ceasefire talks anytime soon.
Jose Lainez Cafferty, social and behavioural change specialist at UNICEF Palestine, said: “Polio is just one of many challenges facing children in Gaza.
“While we have been able to start polio vaccinations, there are other serious problems that remain unaddressed due to lack of access to aid. The complete collapse of the health system, the near-total destruction of sanitation and water infrastructure, and the living conditions of families who have lost their homes make them vulnerable to other disease outbreaks.”
