Officials report case of polio in Gaza as UN appeals for ceasefire to roll out vaccines

Palestinian health officials have reported the first case of polio in an unvaccinated 10-month-old child in the Gazan city of Deir al-Balah. 

After discovering the child's symptoms, tests were conducted in Jordan's capital Amman and the case was confirmed to be polio, health officials said.

It's the first case of the disease in years to be reported in the coastal enclave that has been devastated by the Israel-Hamas war since last October.

The potentially fatal, paralysing disease mostly strikes children under the age of five and typically spreads through contaminated water.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are the only countries where the spread of polio has never been stopped.

On Friday, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres called for seven-day pauses in fighting to allow agencies to roll out a vaccination campaign across the strip.

"We know how an effective polio vaccination campaign must be administered. Given the wholesale devastation in Gaza, at least 95% vaccination coverage will be needed during each round of the two round campaign to prevent polio spread and reduce its emergence," he said.

"I am appealing to all parties to provide concrete assurances right away, guaranteeing humanitarian pauses for the campaign."

Two rounds of a polio vaccinations are expected to be launched at the end of August and September in a bid to prevent the spread of variant type 2 poliovirus (cVDPV2).

During each round of the campaign, the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MoH), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and partners, will provide two drops of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to more than 640,000