As polio threat rises in Gaza, aid groups urge cease-fire for mass vaccination drives

(18 Aug 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip - 17 August 2024
1. Various of girl standing near sewage water and garbage in the street
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khitam Diab, displaced from Nuseirat:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOT 3 & 4++
"As a mother, I am afraid for my son that he will not get vaccinations. Vaccination is necessary for children. If he does not get this vaccination, he may contract polio or any other disease. The simplest thing a young child needs is vaccination. With the spread of sewage and garbage, all of these things affect us and the children."
3. Child walking in sewage water
4. Various of sewage flooding street, people walking
5. Woman carrying her child and walking on a street flooded with sewage
6. People crossing a street flooded with sewage
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Sanaa Akela, displaced from Gaza City:
++PART OVERLAID BY SHOT 8++
"It is difficult to see your child reaching this stage. It is as if we live a primitive life. This (vaccination) is supposed to be available to all children. It is sad that a child reaches the point of suffering from these things. I swear that all children suffer from fever. If you go to any medical facility, you will see the suffering, fever, vomiting and diarrhea, that's unbearable. I fear for my son, and treatment is not available. Why have we reached this stage? What religion is this part of? It's a miserable life."
8. Various of children collecting waste from piles of rubbish
STORYLINE:
The threat of polio is rising fast in the Gaza Strip, prompting aid groups to call for an urgent pause in the war so they can ramp up vaccinations and head off a full-blown outbreak.

One case has been confirmed, others are suspected and the virus was detected in wastewater in six different locations in July.

In the territory's central city of Deir al-Balah, the streets are flooded with sewage water.

Every day, children and adults walk past flooded areas and piles of garbage filling the streets.

With no safe place to go, some displaced people have put up their tents on the side of the street near the sewage, as Israel continues its military campaign in the besieged territory.

Polio was eradicated in Gaza 25 years ago, but vaccinations plunged after the war began 10 months ago and the territory has become a breeding ground for the virus, aid groups say.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians are crowded into tent camps lacking clean water or proper disposal of sewage and garbage.

To avert a widespread outbreak, aid groups are preparing to vaccinate more than 600,000 children in the coming weeks.

They say the ambitious vaccination plans are impossible, though, without a pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas.

A possible cease-fire deal couldn’t come soon enough.

The World Health Organization and UNICEF, the United Nations children’s agency, said in a joint statement Friday that, at a minimum, a seven-day pause is needed to carry out a mass vaccination plan.

The U.N. aims to bring 1.6 million doses of polio vaccine into Gaza, where sanitation and water systems have been destroyed, leaving open pits of human waste in crowded tent camps.

Families living in the camps have little clean water or even soap to maintain hygiene and sometimes use wastewater to drink or clean clothes and dishes.

At least 225 informal waste disposal sites and landfills have cropped up around Gaza — many close to where families are sheltering, according to a report released in July by PAX, a Netherlands-based nonprofit that used satellite imagery to track the sites.

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