No samples have been taken from people but, so it stays unclear if anybody within the Palestinian territory has been contaminated.
Oral polio vaccine (OPV) replicates within the intestine and may be handed to others by means of faecal-contaminated water – which means it will not damage the kid who has been vaccinated however might infect their unvaccinated neighbours in locations the place hygiene and immunisation ranges are low.
Ayadil Saparbekov, the WHO’s head of well being emergencies within the occupied Palestinian territories, stated Tuesday that genomic sequencing carried out by the US Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta indicated that the samples had shut genetic linkage with one another and to samples present in Egypt in late 2023.
“We do think about that there’s a excessive danger of spreading of … (the) vaccine-derived poliovirus in Gaza,” he stated.
WHO and the UNICEF kids’s company will ship a joint staff to Gaza on Thursday to start amassing human samples, with clear suggestions anticipated throughout the coming days on tips on how to handle the menace, together with presumably a mass vaccination marketing campaign.
Israel’s army in the meantime stated Sunday that it had began vaccinating its troops in Gaza in opposition to polio.