CAIRO, August 16. /TASS/. The first polio case has been confirmed in the central Gaza Strip, Palestine’s health ministry said.

"The health ministry has registered the first polio case in the city of Deir al-Balah: the patient is a ten-month baby who has receives no vaccine dose," it wrote on its Facebook page (Facebook is banned in Russia due to its ownership by Meta, which has been designated as extremist).

According to the ministry, medics suspected polio after the baby developed certain symptoms. His samples were sent to Amman where the diagnosis was confirmed.

The ministry has called on the world community "to interfere as soon as possible and immediately stop Israel’s aggression against people in the Gaza Strip," since Israel’s actions, according to the ministry, "have led to a catastrophe in the healthcare sphere in Gaza and given breeding ground for the spread of various epidemic diseases."

The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF issued a joint statement earlier on Friday announcing a two-stage polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip in late August and September. "WHO and UNICEF request all parties to the conflict to implement humanitarian pauses in the Gaza Strip for seven days to allow for two rounds of vaccination campaigns to take place. These pauses in fighting would allow children and families to safely reach health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccination. Without the humanitarian pauses, the delivery of the campaign will not be possible," says the document that was posted on UNICEF’s website.