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The newspaper La Jornada
Saturday, August 17, 2024, p. 21

Gaza. The Gazan Ministry of Health reported the first case of polio in 25 years in the enclave. The affected person is a 10 month old baby who was not vaccinatedin Deir al Balah, where almost all of the 2.4 million inhabitants were displaced in 10 months of war, the ministry said.

The case was confirmed after the analysis of stool samples from three Gazan children. with suspected acute flaccid paralysis, a common symptom of poliomyelitisat Jordan’s national polio laboratory. The virus was detected in July in wastewater samples from Khan Yunis and Deir al Balah. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for humanitarian pauses to vaccinate more than 640,000 children under 10 years of age. The World Health Organization believes that the campaign should be immediate.