Israel Winds Up on WHO's 'Outbreak Countries' After Spike in Polio Cases

The rise in polio cases began on 8 March when a four year-old was diagnosed with the disabling disease. The boy was not vaccinated. As of Sunday, there were eight more confirmed cases of polio in Jerusalem, which had initially been polio-free since 1988.

New cases of the poliovirus among unvaccinated children in Jerusalem have caused the World Health Organisation to put Israel back on their list of polio "outbreak countries".

The country was declared polio-free in 1988, but the first case of the virus since then showed up on 8 March when a four year-boy started to show symptoms. Since then, eight more cases of the virus have been confirmed, all among unvaccinated children.

The new cases have prompted the Health Ministry to launch an operation that will watch for new cases of the poliovirus. They have also initiated a public awareness campaign to educate parents on vaccinating their children.

Some children in Israel were not able to receive doses of their routine vaccinations due to school closures caused by the COVID-19 pandemic; however, schools are just one of several places where children can be vaccinated. Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis, who is the head of public health services at the Israeli Ministry of Health, has stated that this is not the primary issue in vaccinating these children.

"The situation we are seeing in Jerusalem is not just a result of [closures during] COVID", said Alroy-Preis. "There are whole communities that choose not to vaccinate, for ideological reasons or technical reasons. They have too many children to bring to get vaccinated, or the schedule is too much to keep up with".

"It is a challenge for several reasons", she added. "First, due to fake news, suddenly everything has a question mark over it. Even vaccines that we have had for years and that we've seen eliminate diseases, suddenly they are being questioned".

Alroy-Preis also noted that because the poliovirus only shows flu-like symptoms in 10%-20% of cases, there is a likelihood that there are "hundreds of children in the Jerusalem area walking around with the virus who do not know they have it".

Traces of the virus have also been discovered in the sewage systems of Jerusalem, Beit Shemesh, Tiberias, and Modiin Illit.

The ministry fears that the virus will spread outside of Jerusalem and reach other parts of Israel, and as such they will be working on a "countrywide operation", says Alroy-Preis, adding that only parents of unvaccinated children should be concerned. "Most parents do vaccinate their children, and we are just filling in the cracks".

The poliovirus mainly affects those aged younger than five, and a majority of those infected will not have any visible symptoms. One out of four people with the infection will have flu-like symptoms that include a sore throat, fever, nausea, stomach pain, and a headache. But less than one out of 100 of those infected by the poliovirus will develop much more serious health issues such as paresthesia, meningitis, and even paralysis.

In the past month, more than 18,000 children in Jerusalem have received a dose of their polio vaccine thanks to the ministry's efforts to ramp up vaccination rates.

But as of now, Israel will be included on the WHO's Global Polio Eradication Initiative's list of countries with polio outbreaks among 28 other countries. Egypt, Iran, Ethiopia, and Ukraine are also on the list of areas with outbreaks. These countries had managed to eradicate polio in the past, but the virus has since resurfaced. Only two countries have never ceased transmission of the virus, those being Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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