The Palestinian Ministry of Health on Monday declared the Gaza Strip a polio epidemic zone, stressing that the matter poses a health threat to the residents of the Strip and neighboring countries and a setback to the global polio eradication program. The Ministry explained in a statement that the presence of the polio virus of the type (CVPV2) was discovered in the sewage water in the governorates of Khan Yunis (south) and (central). It noted that this announcement, which comes after many years of eradicating the disease in Palestine, came due to the catastrophic state that the residents of the Gaza Strip have reached under the brutal Israeli aggression, the destruction of the sewage infrastructure, the accumulation of thousands of tons of garbage, and the overcrowding of the population in displacement areas. The Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip warned that the program to combat this epidemic, launched in partnership with the relevant international institutions, especially UNICEF and the World Health O rganization (WHO), will not be sufficient unless the aggression is ended immediately, in addition to finding radical solutions to the problem of the lack of potable water and hygiene means, repairing wastewater networks, and transporting tons of garbage and solid waste. The Israeli occupation has been waging a devastating war on the Gaza Strip since October 7, committing massacres against Palestinian civilians, leaving tens of thousands of martyrs, wounded and missing, and causing massive destruction to infrastructure and vital facilities, in addition to the unprecedented humanitarian disaster it has caused in the Strip as a result of stopping the supplies of food, water, medicine and fuel due to the restrictions of the occupation. Source: Qatar News Agency
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