A health disaster is looming over Palestinians living in refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, where wastewater containing the poliovirus is spreading.
The poliovirus has been detected in wastewater samples in the Gaza Strip, putting thousands of Palestinians at risk of contracting this infectious disease.
The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that they have identified type II poliovirus: “It has appeared in the wastewater, signaling a serious health disaster that could put thousands of people at risk of polio.”
The conflict in the Gaza Strip has forced hundreds of thousands to live in refugee camps with contaminated water sources (Photo: AL Jazeera).
Accordingly, the virus was found in stagnant wastewater, flowing between refugee tents, posing a risk of spreading to the already scarce drinking water supply.
The city authorities of Deir el-Balah, located in central Gaza, predict that roads will be flooded with wastewater and diseases will spread after the city shut down wastewater treatment stations.
“We are talking about a very bleak medical reality in Deir el-Balah, where 700,000 refugees have come seeking safety from the fighting and airstrikes,” said Tareq Abu Azzoum, a war correspondent in the Gaza Strip.
Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care physician, compared the presence of the virus in wastewater to a “time bomb.”
“Normally, if we encounter a case of polio, we would isolate them and ensure that the patient uses a bathroom that no one else uses and stays away from others, but that is impossible here,” she explained.
“Currently, everyone is gathering in refugee camps without vaccinations for at least the past nine months, including both children and adults who had previously received polio vaccinations, but they all need booster shots amid the outbreak, including healthcare workers.”
Haj-Hassan stated that the spread of poliovirus among healthcare workers would be a disaster for an already devastated healthcare system in the Gaza Strip.
Previously, the Israeli Ministry of Health reported that they found evidence of type II poliovirus in wastewater samples taken from within the Gaza Strip.
The Israeli government has instructed all military personnel engaged in combat in the Gaza Strip to receive vaccinations and recommended booster shots for those who had received prior doses.
The detection of the poliovirus comes after a European activist group released a report stating that the Gaza Strip is “overwhelmed” with hundreds of thousands of tons of human waste and debris from the conflict.
In 1980, a global campaign was launched by United Nations health agencies to eradicate polio—often spread through wastewater and contaminated water—but in recent years, the disease has re-emerged in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
