The World Health Organization (WHO) warned of a “high risk of the polio virus” spreading in Gaza due to poor health and sanitation conditions.
“There is a high risk of spreading of the circulating vaccine-derived polio virus in Gaza, not only because of the detection but because of the very dire situation with the water sanitation,” Ayadil Saparbekov, team lead for health emergencies at WHO in Gaza and the West Bank, said.
A type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus was detected in Gaza’s sewage. WHO officials are conducting a risk assessment and considering a mass vaccination campaign.
“It may also spill over internationally, at a very high point,” he continued.
The Israeli military plans to vaccinate soldiers and plans to administer vaccines for over a million people in Gaza.
“I’m extremely worried about an outbreak happening in Gaza. And this is not only polio, different outbreaks of communicable diseases,” Saparbekov continued.
In March 2023, an outbreak of vaccine-induced polio had been declared by Burundian health officials, marking the first time the paralyzing disease has been detected in the East African nation in more than three decades, ABC reported.
A four-year-old child in western Burundi who had not been vaccinated and two other children who had come into contact with the child all tested positive for polio, the Burundi government confirmed in a statement at the time.
It was determined that the virus that caused the children to become ill was a mutated strain of polio originally contained in the oral polio vaccine.
According to CDC, a vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV) is a strain related to the weakened live poliovirus contained in oral polio vaccine (OPV). If allowed to circulate in under- or unimmunized populations for long enough, or replicate in an immunodeficient individual, the weakened virus can revert to a form that causes illness and paralysis.
VDPVs can cause outbreaks in places where vaccine coverage is low. In addition, people with certain immunodeficiency disorders can shed the virus for long periods of time, during which the virus can continue to change and can infect an unvaccinated person,” the agency added.
