The infection of the ultra-Orthodox girl from Mea Shearim, 4 years old, with polio, a child paralysis disease, is stirring the Jerusalem neighborhood. The Ministry of Health fears that this is not a single case but the tip of the iceberg of many other asymptomatic cases. An emergency meeting is expected to convene at noon with the participation of the members of the Haredi community.
The Ministry of Health is continuing its epidemiological investigation to locate the contacts. Emergency centers and many frightened residents have been set up in the Mea Shearim neighborhood. Polio bacteria have reportedly been diagnosed with adjustments in sewage water in the neighborhood.
According to the Ministry of Health in Jerusalem, there are ultra-Orthodox areas where there are many vaccine opponents. According to the Ministry of Health, only 83% of toddlers up to the age of one have received all four required doses of the vaccine, some of course will complete it later and only this is a delay and some are vaccine-resistant.
The Mayor of Jerusalem, Moshe Leon, has established a special Knesset in cooperation with the Ministry of Health in order to vaccinate the children who have not yet been vaccinated as soon as possible.
The information department launched a Bezeq operation in which emergency vehicles will be activated in the neighborhoods and information materials on the importance of the vaccine will be distributed immediately.
The Emergency and Public Health Department contacted the rabbis of the Haredi community who ordered that they be vaccinated immediately and even hold an emergency meeting at noon with the participation of all the members of the Haredi community.
In addition, following the order of the Badatz rabbis, the emergency department of the municipality contacted the parents of the kindergarten children where the polio patient studied and conducted tests for everyone in order to prevent the spread of the disease.
Under the direction of the mayor and in cooperation with the Ministry of Health, the hours of breastfeeding activity have been extended in order to allow anyone interested to be vaccinated immediately, and a telephone team on behalf of the municipality contacts all parents who have not yet vaccinated the children.
Mayor Moshe Leon, says that “this morning we are opening emergency vaccination centers in cooperation with the HMOs and the Ministry of Health and are in constant contact with community leaders in order to quickly vaccinate as many children as possible. “This morning we are in contact with all the families who have not yet vaccinated the children and we ask everyone to act quickly to stop this terrible disease.
To find out about the special hours of milk drops throughout the city, you can contact the municipal hotline at 106 and get all the details.
As mentioned, the Ministry of Health reported yesterday that a case of polio (child paralysis) was discovered in a 4-year-old girl from the Mea Shearim neighborhood of Jerusalem who was not vaccinated against the disease as part of routine vaccinations.
According to the report on the N12, the toddler was brought in for a medical examination after symptoms of weakness were seen in his left half of his body, and as part of the tests performed, the test was also found to reveal that he had polio. Doctors hope he will be able to overcome the virus without causing irreversible damage, but it is certainly possible that his condition will worsen to the point of disability as happened to polio patients in the 1950s.
The Ministry of Health began urgently examining the contacts of the toddler who became infected for fear of a new and larger outbreak of the serious illness among an unvaccinated public in Jerusalem.
This is the first time that a child with polio has been found in the State of Israel since 1989, and the Ministry of Health has stepped up the monitoring of sewage in the capital to try to detect further infections. The hard estimate is that there are probably dozens to hundreds of cases of infection.
Polio is an infectious disease caused by the polio virus. The virus is contagious and is transmitted from person to person (especially in children). The virus enters the body through the mouth and is excreted in the feces. There are usually no signs of illness and only one in a thousand people (who are not vaccinated) will develop symptoms symptomatically with paralysis, but if there are many cases of infection the number of children severely affected by the virus may be high.