Parents Fear for children’s health as polio re-emerges in Gaza
Gazan parents were perplexed as a mother asked if her month-old son Mohammed could have polio, this terrible disease that never touched Gaza for a quarter of a century. Reported by Reuters on Friday, the Palestinian Health Ministry said that the first polio case in the enclave had been identified.
Immediately after the son’s birth, a few days later, Ghada Al-Ghandour started developing some concerns over the health of her son when the newborn developed severe skin rashes. “He had skin rashes as if he was burnt,” she narrated to me. When Mohammed’s mother took him to a doctor, she was told there were no creams for treating her son’s skin condition. Moreover, like thousands of Gazans, she was shocked by the severe scarcity of medical equipment in Gaza today after more than ten months of unceasing strife.
Receiving no response, Ghada sought medical help at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, to get a diagnosis for her child. She worried that the further erupting of other signs and symptoms and diseases that she observed was due to the war area’s poor hygiene and healthcare situation.
The Palestinian Health Ministry for the Gaza Strip said the first clinical case of polio detected in the region was in a ten-month-old baby in Deir Al-Balah who was not immunised. Now, Mohammed has also grown up without receiving the polio vaccine. ‘My son was never administered the first vaccine in his first month,’ fumed Ghada.
Polio is a dangerous infectious virus mainly spread through the contamination of food and water, and it has the capability of affecting a person’s nervous system and, in severe cases, can paralyse them; most of the victims are children below five years of age. In Gaza, for instance, where, because of the ongoing war, routine immunisations have been significantly affected, the risk is especially high for children under two.
Al-Daqran, Governor of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, said that with Arab forces continuing to close the border crossing, there will be a calamitous health crisis. On Sunday, Israel said it would help to bring polio vaccines to more than one million children in Gaza. Some 43 230 vials are to be supplied to Israel in several weeks, which is enough for two rounds of shots for more than one million kids.
But Al-Daqran noted that a vaccination campaign has to be preceded by the cessation of hostilities. The World Health Organization (WHO) also deplored deep concern. It was quoted as having said on 16 August that the polio outbreak is yet another menace to the children in the Gaza Strip and neighbouring countries.
The suffering of the people in Gaza is unspeakable; today, half of the 2. Some three million of this population are under 18 years old, and 15 per cent are below five years old, as the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics indicates. Yet, the people of Palestine have another enemy before them – the polio outbreak – on top of suffering from food, fuel and water deficiencies daily.
The fighting that has been going on since Hamas attacked the south of the country involves 1,200 Israelis, more than 250 of whom are hostages, according to Israel. According to Gaza authorities, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli military campaign. Nevertheless, data provided by Haaretz in recent days indicate that 472 of the 1,139 people killed were victims not of the Palestinian Resistance but of the Israeli army.
