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 could be handed to others by means of faecal-contaminated water – that 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, mentioned 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 take into account that there’s a excessive threat of spreading of … (the) vaccine-derived poliovirus in Gaza,” he mentioned.
WHO and the UNICEF kids’s company will ship a joint workforce to Gaza on Thursday to start amassing human samples, with clear suggestions anticipated throughout the coming days on methods to handle the menace, together with probably a mass vaccination marketing campaign.
Israel’s army in the meantime mentioned Sunday that it had began vaccinating its troops in Gaza towards polio.
