‘He can’t move at all’: A Gaza mother’s agony over baby with polio
Inside a tent near al-Zawayda town in central Gaza, 35-year-old Nevin Abu al-Jidyan sat on the floor next to her youngest child, Abdul Rahman, who lay in a plastic baby seat.
She looked pale as she gently touched his face, and fanned him with a piece of cardboard.
He was sleeping after a bout of crying. It was a disturbed sleep, and the child, dressed in dusty clothes, moved his head from time to time. Nevin’s eight other children sat quietly in the small space, furnished with some mattresses, cooking utensils and other belongings in a corner.
The once-vibrant child, who had just started to take his first steps, used to play and fill the camp with his spirited energy, but he is now bedridden.
Abdul Rahman, who turned one on September 1, is the first child confirmed to have contracted polio in Gaza in 25 years.
“Not long ago, my son was constantly moving,” Nevin says, tears welling up in her eyes. “He was so active that his father bought him a small plastic cart to ride. He was so restless he broke it from all his … playing.”
‘The world collapsed’
About two months ago, Abdul Rahman developed a high fever and began vomiting constantly. Worried, Nevin rushed him to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the last functioning medical facility in central Gaza, never imagining how serious his illness was.
For two weeks, he was barely awake and rather than breastfeeding as usual, he was fed through a drip. After spending two weeks in hospital, Nevin brought her son, who had started eating again but with difficulty, back to the family’s tent.
Doctors suspected a serious illness and sent samples to Jordan for testing. A month later, Nevin received the devastating news over the phone: Abdul Rahman had polio.
“It was like the world collapsed around me,” she recalls. “I couldn’t believe it. The doctors confirmed the diagnosis and told me to prepare all my children for immediate vaccination.”
She was stunned, and although she could barely comprehend what was happening, she remembers being terrified that her other children could develop the same illness.
Missed vaccinations
Since Abdul Rahman fell sick, he has been unable to stand or move his legs and sometimes has spasms. He also has trouble moving his left arm.
Initially, Nevin thought this was due to exhaustion from being ill. Now she knows polio has left her son paralysed in both legs.
Nevin was displaced from northern Gaza with her family after Israeli orders to evacuate. Since then, she and her family have faced one upheaval after another in the past 11 months since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza and killed more than 40,800 Palestinians.
The family of 11 has been forced to move five times. The constant displacement, she believes, prevented Abdul Rahman from getting his critical vaccinations, leading to him contracting polio.
“The virus hit my son hard,” Nevin explains. “When we were displaced, he was only a month old and missed his vaccinations. We were constantly moving, and that was an obstacle.”
She also believes the poor living conditions contributed to his illness. “The dirty water and lack of nutritious food are what made Abdul Rahman sick. I think contaminated water, the kind they distribute to us, is the main reason for the spread of polio.”
Polio can spread quickly in unhygienic conditions through contact with excrement, or in less common cases, through sneezing or coughing. It can lead to mild, flu-like symptoms but in some cases can affect the brain and nerves, leading to irreversible paralysis and sometimes death.
The United Nations, along with Gaza health authorities, has begun a vaccination campaign to give oral polio vaccines to about 640,000 children.
The poliovirus present in Gaza is believed to be vaccine-derived, that is, weakened viruses from oral vaccines have mutated to cause infections and spread due to Israel’s destruction of sanitation infrastructure. Unvaccinated or partially vaccinated children below the age of five are most at risk. There is no cure for polio.
