Dubai: A 10-month-old baby in war-torn Gaza has been paralyzed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the region in 25 years, the World Health Organization said on Friday, as UN agencies appealed for a state of emergency. Vaccination is for every child.
Type 2 virus (cVDPV2), although not inherently more dangerous than types 1 and 3, has been responsible for most outbreaks in recent years, particularly in areas with low vaccination rates.
UN agencies have called on Israel and Gaza’s dominant Palestinian militant group Hamas to agree to a seven-day humanitarian pause in their 10-month-old war to allow vaccination campaigns in the territory to continue.
“Polio does not distinguish between Palestinian and Israeli children,” the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) said friday in a post on x.
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