Polio virus found in Gaza sewage

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES (AFP) — Polio has been detected in samples of sewage that is starting to take over Gaza in the grip of a devastating war, health authorities in the Hamas-run territory and Israel said Thursday.

The announcement came after a European activist group released a report saying the Gaza Strip is “drowning” in hundreds of thousands of tons of human waste and rubble from the Israel-Hamas war.

The Gaza ministry said thousands of people in crowded tent cities of war-displaced were now at risk of contracting the highly infectious disease, which can cause deformities and paralysis.

United Nations health agencies started a global campaign in 1980 to eradicate polio, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, but there has been a resurgence in recent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The health ministry said tests carried out with the United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, “showed the presence of poliovirus” in the territory, which has been the target of a devastating Israeli military offensive since the 7 October Hamas attacks.

The Israeli health ministry said poliovirus type 2 had been found in Gaza sewage samples tested in an Israeli laboratory.

Sewage now flows between the tents used by tens of thousands of displaced people across Gaza and the presence of poliovirus “marks a new health disaster,” the ministry said.