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55196 |
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Date: August 23, 2024 at 20:05:00
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: the 1st case of Polio in more than 25 years, but no one will care beca |
URL: https://x.com/mehdirhasan |
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Mehdi Hasan reposted
Rashida Tlaib@RashidaTlaib
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6h
The first case of #Polio in more than 25 years, but no one will care because the
baby is Palestinian.
I'm so saddened and ashamed of our country looking away and pretending
they are trying to stop this madness. We don't want your thoughts and prayers.
We need action.
Prem Thakker@prem_thakker
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11h
10 month old baby. As in: a child born into war, whose only experience of life is
war, becoming paralyzed from war. Life itself defined by war, and now
suspended by war. x.com/unlazzarini/st…
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[55229] [55202] [55220] [55199] |
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55229 |
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Date: August 25, 2024 at 02:06:16
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Israel Rejects UN Ceasefire Call to allow Vaccinations |
URL: https://www.juancole.com/2024/08/palestinian-paralyzed-vaccinations.html |
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Palestinian Baby in Gaza Paralyzed by Polio, as Israel Rejects UN Ceasefire Call
to allow Vaccinations
JUAN COLE
08/24/2024
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Julian Borger at The Guardian reports that
the first verified case of type 2 poliovirus in 25 years in Gaza, in a baby, has
resulted in the paralysis of the infant. It is only the first of many if the UN is not
allowed to administer vaccines to 650,000 children in the Strip, which will
definitely require a ceasefire. The Israeli authorities are refusing to consider this
step.
There is no cure for polio once it is contracted. Its victims can be paralyzed or
can die.
Without a ceasefire, UNICEF points out, you cannot get the families to line up
their children to receive the vaccine by mouth. Some 95% of the infants in Gaza
need to have the vaccine administered to prevent an outbreak, and they need
two doses. Without a ceasefire, the aid workers cannot even safely move
around to make arrangements for giving out the doses. The aid organizations
want to use Deir al-Balah to store and distribute the vaccines, but the Israeli
army has just once again ordered everyone out of it and has invaded it, risking
destroying the remaining medical infrastructure there. Some 250,000
Palestinians have once again been expelled from their shelters since the
beginning of August.
UNRWA head Philippe Lazzarini warned regarding Gaza, “Delaying a
humanitarian pause will increase the risk of spread among children.” He
suggested that some Israeli children could suffer from an epidemic, as well, but
of course Israeli children have largely been vaccinated continually. Palestinian
children had also been almost entirely vaccinated up until the Israeli total war
on Gaza was implemented last fall.
UNICEF wrote of another war, Ukraine, “UNICEF helps vaccinate over 400
million children globally against polio every year, to eradicate polio worldwide. In
Ukraine, UNICEF works to secure uninterrupted availability of life-saving
vaccines for children and adults and to maintain high routine immunization
coverage. As the war and subsequent displacement continues, gaps in
immunization coverage put children’s health at risk.”
Although children in Ukraine are also at risk from polio outbreaks, the human
toll of that war pales in comparison to Gaza. Some 2,000 children have been
killed as a result of Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s total war on the Gaza population
has blown over 15,000 children to smithereens.
Whereas Putin’s Russia has been massively sanctioned for its illegal occupation
and warfare in Ukraine by the US and most NATO countries, Israel’s
government, which illegally occupied Gaza in 1967 and which has shown a
reckless disregard for civilian life that may amount to genocide, has been given
tens of billions of dollars by the Biden administration.
Type 2 polio vaccinations are substantially down over the past ten months,
since the population and the aid workers have been constantly expelled from a
succession of supposed safe zones by the Israeli military, medical facilities
have been destroyed, and medicine deliveries have been made difficult or
impossible by the bombings, artillery barrages, machine gun fire, drone strikes,
lack of fuel and general chaos deliberately inflicted on the entire population by
monstrously permissive Israeli rules of engagement — which entirely disregard
the value of civilian, noncombatant life.
“Gaza Polio,” by Juan Cole, Digital, Dream / Dreamland v. 3 / Clip2Comic, 2024
Although Israeli authorities are allowing the delivery of the refrigerated trucks
necessary for the vaccines, as well as the vaccine doses themselves, through
the Kerem Shalom crossing, the aid workers are pointing out that these steps
do no good at all unless there is a ceasefire that allows the aid workers to move
around and give the vaccines to the children. Borger quotes Lazzarini as saying,
“It is not enough to bring the vaccines into Gaza and protect the cold chain. To
have an impact, the vaccines must end up in the mouths of every child under
the age of 10.”
UNICEF points out that “The world has made tremendous progress against
polio in the past three decades, vaccinating over 2.5 billion children and
reducing cases by 99 percent. But this progress is fragile, and we cannot afford
to lose focus. Millions of children are still missing out on routine vaccinations
because of pandemic disruptions, conflict, climate disasters and
displacement.”
It quotes Yuliia Dovjanych, Head Doctor at the ‘Dbayu’ medical centre
“Infectious diseases do not disappear during the war. The fight against them is
our ‘medical front’ where we must remain resilient. Therefore, we must continue
to get vaccinated, take care of our health and the health of our children!” Some
11,520 civilians have been killed in the Ukraine war, whereas over 40,000
people have been killed in Gaza, a majority of them women and children.
At the medical front in Gaza, the war to save the children is going very badly. It
will be lost without a ceasefire.
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55202 |
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Date: August 24, 2024 at 05:49:57
From: akira, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Polio, hepatitis, meningitis: Gaza’s humanitarian disaster takes ... |
URL: https://english.elpais.com/international/2024-08-23/polio-hepatitis-meningitis-gazas-humanitarian-disaster-takes-the-form-of-disease.html |
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Polio, hepatitis, meningitis: Gaza’s humanitarian disaster takes the form of
disease
The discovery of polio in a baby born at the beginning of the war marks the first
case of the virus in the Strip in 25 years, a sign of the impacts of overcrowding,
water shortage, malnutrition, and forced displacement
ANTONIO PITA
Jerusalem - AUG 23, 2024
United Nations agencies and non-profits have been issuing warnings about the
possibility for months. Some saw it as just a matter of time. Disastrous health
conditions, vast numbers of people living in tents, serial displacements and
food and water shortages were bound to wind up translating, sooner or later,
into disease. Primarily, into those that flourish in overcrowding or from fecal
matter in the water supply. Last week, health authorities announced the first
case of polio in Gaza in 25 years, in Deir al-Balah, a town where tens of
thousands of displaced people have wound up. The patient is a 10-month-old
baby who was never vaccinated. It’s no coincidence that the youngster’s time
on this earth exactly coincides with the invasion of Gaza, where vaccination
rates have dropped from 99% to 89% and during which at least 50,000 babies
have been born who — amid bombs and forced evacuations — have seldom
received their vaccines.
Polio is primarily transmitted through the consumption of water with fecal
matter. The virus was detected in July, in water samples from six points in Khan
Younis and Deir al-Balah. To confirm the suspected cases, the samples were
brought to Jordan for analysis.
Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF announced in a
joint statement that they have guaranteed the supply of 1.6 million doses of
type 2 oral vaccine to supply more than 640,000 children under the age of 10,
but that the campaign will only be effective if it reaches at least 96% of them,
which “will be impossible” without a “humanitarian pause”.
The vaccines would enter at the end of August through Ben Gurion Airport near
Tel Aviv, and must make their way to Gaza in temperature-controlled storage.
Funding will be required to cover travel expenses, fuel, and operational
telecommunications networks to inform the population of the vaccine
campaign.
For the 640,000 Gazans under the age of 10 who are condemned to remain in
the hellish current conditions of their homeland, the future very much depends
on those who are involved in ceasefire negotiations, individuals who are often
inhabiting completely different worlds, thousands of miles away.
That dialogue is at an impasse due to the failed strategy of one of the
mediating countries’ chief diplomats, the United States’ Antony Blinken, who
allowed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to modify the agreement,
presented a new draft they dubbed a “compromise proposal,” and pressured
Hamas to accept its terms. The goal remains to hold the meeting originally
scheduled to take place on August 22 this weekend. President Joe Biden (with
Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris on the call) spoke late
Wednesday with Netanyahu to convey the “urgency of closing” a ceasefire
agreement.
Khan Yunis
A water reserve rendered inoperable by Israeli attacks in Khan Younis in
southern Gaza, on August 14.
ANADOLU (ANADOLU VIA GETTY IMAGES)
Humanitarian pause
For the White House, that “urgency” stems more than anything from impending
presidential elections against Donald Trump and the risk of war spreading
across the region, if negotiations fail. But for humanitarian organizations it has
more to do with avoiding the outbreak of polio, which primarily affects children
under the age of five, can cause paralysis and deformities, and which
widespread vaccines nearly completely eradicated from the world four decades
ago.
Health advocates are now focused on achieving a one-week humanitarian
pause to carry out vaccinations. Such a plan was called for last week by UN
Secretary General António Guterres himself, and was supported by the Hamas
government’s health ministry in Gaza. Israel has not formally responded and
COGAT (the unit of Israel’s defense ministry that is responsible for coordinating
civilian issues in Gaza and the West Bank) commented only by noting that it
has coordinated the entry of more than 300,000 vaccines, and that more than
90% of Gazans are vaccinated.
Blinken raised the issue with Netanyahu at a meeting, but the diplomat’s vague
comments on the subject at a Tel Aviv press conference on Monday did not
allow much room for hope. “We very much share the concern about the
possibility of [polio’s] reemergence, and we have been working on a detailed
plan to make sure that those who need to be vaccinated against it can be
vaccinated. We are working on that with the Israeli government and I think we
will be able to move forward with a plan to do that in the coming weeks,” Blinken
said.
The prospect of weeks of planning runs contrary to the plan proposed by
humanitarian groups. “Now that polio is confirmed, the response must be
measured in hours, not weeks,” said Natalia Anguera, head of Action Against
Hunger for the Middle East, in an appeal issued Tuesday by some 40 medical
professionals and NGOs such as the Norwegian Refugee Council, CAR, and
Oxfam.
Water with feces and mountains of garbage
The solution must not be limited to the opening of another dubious
“humanitarian corridor,” given the interconnectedness of a territory where the
population’s priority is to find food and water and where puddles of water
contaminated by fecal matter and mountains of garbage have become the new
daily reality: 70% of sewage pumps have been destroyed and not a single
sewage treatment center is in regular operation.
Many Gazans are using holes in the sand as latrines. Water for washing one’s
hands after using such facilities is collected in unsanitary gas cans that
residents carry back and forth. The UN estimated that during the first seven
months of the war, some 415,766 individuals, a quarter of them children under
five years of age, suffered from acute diarrhea. With many living in overcrowded
tents on the sand in sweltering heat, cases of scabies, lice, rashes, chicken pox,
and acute jaundice have also impacted tens of thousands of people.
On August 12, the UN World Food Program reported that many community
kitchens in central and southern Gaza are facing difficulties due to the
instability of humanitarian supplies and the lack of food and fuel, especially as a
result of the latest evacuation orders, which were previously subject to
international condemnation but are today part of daily life for Gazans. There
have been 12 such orders in August, one every two days, which have affected
some 250,000 people, more than a tenth of the population. The latest
evacuation orders impacted Khan Younis and Dier al-Balah, where some
families have spent the night on the road or on the beach after fleeing the
advance of tanks from the east and west. Ninety percent of Gazans have been
displaced since the beginning of the war, and most live in subhuman conditions
in tents or crammed into apartments, some damaged by bombs.
Sofía Piñeiro has been to Gaza on two occasions as Doctors Without Borders
Spain’s nurse activity manager. During her first trip in February and March, her
mission centered on Rafah, which had not yet been invaded. Her second trip,
during which she worked in the pediatric and maternity section of Khan Younis’
Al Nasser Hospital, ended last week. The environment, she says, is “very
different.” “Before there was the urgency of the refugees, but Rafah was
considered a safe zone. The war was further away. That boundary has been
completely blurred,” she says by telephone. The Israeli army recently reduced
the so-called “humanitarian zone” to 11% of Gaza.
On her latest trip, Piñeiro encountered the usual: simple wounds that wound up
getting infected and requiring antibiotics (due to a lack of water and material
needed to perform basic cleaning), respiratory and skin infections, and insect
bites. But she says there is also “a level of overflow” that makes the necessary
isolation to prevent the spread of hepatitis A impossible. The disease has
already impacted 100,000 Gazans, according to UN data.
“At a 60-bed hospital, we had up to 180 patients … In a room for four children,
seven. We had four-month-old babies with fever in the hallway because we
don’t have anywhere else to attend to them,” she says. “Post-partum women
ask to be released. They don’t feel safe in the hospital, because some have
been the target of attacks.”
Deir al-Balah
A beach covered by sewage water near the tents of Deir al-Balah in central
Gaza, on Monday.
NURPHOTO (NURPHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES)
It’s a vicious cycle. Meningitis, for example, is transmitted through saliva, like
Covid, which is why patient isolation is crucial, as well as a prescribed diet. As
primary care providers cannot cover their needs, some patients go directly to
already over-extended hospitals, where health workers face the dilemma of
treating affected individuals and sending them back to living in a tent with up to
14 other people. These difficulties are exacerbated by complicated and
dangerous conditions that are involved in arriving at health care facilities (for
both patients and health professionals) and the fact that Gazans rarely manage
to stay long in one place.
After 10 months of war, there have also been considerable cumulative effects.
Bodies pay the price for living for so long under such precarious conditions.
Children, Piñeiro explains, “have fewer defenses after 10 months of a very
basic, carbohydrate-based diet.” Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich
noted earlier this month that starving “two million people” (referring to the total
number of people living in the Strip) “might be just and moral until the Israeli
hostages” held by Hamas are returned, but that “no one” in the world would
allow such a tactic. “We bring [allow in] aid because we have no choice … We
need international legitimacy for this war,” he added.
The Israeli army has vaccinated its soldiers, following the discovery of polio in
the water samples. That campaign has taken place in Israeli territory, for both
those on leave from being stationed in Gaza and those who will soon arrive
there. That does not solve, however, the risk that autumn rains will carry
contaminated water to an aquifer that supplies Israel, Egypt, and Jordan."
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from EL PAÍS USA Edition
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Date: August 24, 2024 at 17:48:45
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: Polio, hepatitis, meningitis: Gaza’s humanitarian disaster takes... |
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Thank you.
"...for humanitarian organizations it has
more to do with avoiding the outbreak of polio, which
primarily affects children
under the age of five, can cause paralysis and
deformities, and which
widespread vaccines nearly completely eradicated from
the world four decades
ago.'
We are all connected. If it takes parents the world
over to look at their child and see this war could cost
them that child, it will end more quickly.
But it won't stop Russian and Iranian interests
churning their chaos in other territories.
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55199 |
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Date: August 23, 2024 at 23:45:44
From: mitra, [DNS_Address]
Subject: Re: but no one will care...? |
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Why should anyone care...? That phrase itself "but no
one will care..." is a phantom, an invention from
contempt and for attention that presents the arrogance
of presuming how people feel.
So why should anyone actually believe that the "baby
with polio" isn't the same sort of imagined meme and go
on to find something real to care about.
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