This detection “foreshadows a real health disaster and exposes thousands of residents to the risk of contracting” this disease, warns the Hamas health ministry.
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The health crisis is worsening in the Gaza Strip. The presence of the virus responsible for polio has been detected in several samples of wastewater from the Palestinian territory, the Hamas government’s Health Ministry announced on Thursday, July 18. The tests were carried out “in coordination with UNICEF”, The ministry wrote in a statement. A viral disease, poliomyelitis is now endemic in only two countries: Pakistan and Afghanistan.
This detection, “in the waste water that flows between the tents of the displaced people”, “foreshadows a real health disaster and exposes thousands of residents to the risk of contracting“this disease,” the ministry added.
After nine months of war in the Gaza Strip, sewage pumping stations in Deir al-Balah, in the center of the territory, stopped working on Tuesday due to lack of fuel, according to the municipality. Stagnant sewage, piles of waste and rubble form a “environment conducive to the spread of various epidemics”denounced the ministry, which calls for “the immediate cessation of Israeli aggression.”
For its part, the Israeli Ministry of Health has confirmed the presence of a polio virus “type 2 was detected in wastewater samples from the Gaza region“According to the WHO website, this is a strain considered to have been eradicated in 1999. The Hebrew state ministry says “to watch” the situation for “preventing the risk of disease in Israel.”
