Wild

Polio

Firstly, I share my United Nations viewings from earlier today. The Russia/U.S. exchange in the last ~ 10 minutes of video # 3 are quite deliciously pristine. Bon appétit 👌

The latter country (at least to me) appears quite…

meek,

sneak,

tweak,

weak

Your empire crumbles under weight..

no longer great,

await the fate,

translate innate,

inflate the hate,

debate the state,

a date if late,

dictated straight,

slated rate,

bye bye estate,

ma3a salama,

see you never 👋

➊ 🎥 Polio vaccination campaign and health situation in Gaza - Press Conference

Press conference by Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's (WHO) Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), on the polio vaccination campaign and more generally on the health situation in Gaza and what the UN team is doing to respond.

➋ 🎥 Sudan, South Sudan, Palestine & other topics - Daily Press Briefing

Noon Briefing by Stéphane Dujarric, Spokesperson for the Secretary-General. Highlights: Secretary-General/Travels | Deputy Secretary-General/Travels | Sudan/Humanitarian | South Sudan | Occupied Palestinian Territory | Yemen | Ukraine | Democratic Republic of the Congo | International Day Against Nuclear Tests 

➌ 🎥 The situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question - Security Council, 9715th meeting

Briefing by Ms. Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, Assistant Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Part of her statement:

“We cannot plan more than 24 hours in advance because we struggle to know what supplies we will have, when we will have them or where we will be able to deliver. The lives of 2.1 million people cannot depend on luck and hope alone.

Mr. President, evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military have spiked, with devastating impacts on civilians. So far this month 16 of these orders have been issued. Between 19 and 24 August alone, five such orders were issued - the largest number of orders issued in a single week since the start of this crisis.

These orders impacted a quarter of a million people in 33 neighborhoods in Deir al Balah, Khan Younis and northern Gaza.

Al Aqsa hospital – one of the last functioning of the larger hospitals in Gaza – as well as health clinics, water wells, a desalination plant, and a water reservoir, were all affected by these latest orders. Water production in Deir al Balah has been reduced by around 85 per cent.

The subsequent evacuation order on 25 August led to the largest relocation of UN staff since we were forced to leave northern Gaza in October 2023. In the past few days, some 200 staff were impacted along with nine UN guesthouses, four UN warehouses and six NGO guesthouses.

More than 88 per cent of Gaza’s territory has come under an order to evacuate at some point. Communities live in a state of limbo, never knowing when the next order to flee will come. And civilians are being forced into an ever-smaller area, now equivalent to just 11 per cent of the territory of Gaza.

It is difficult to put into words the immense struggle people are facing to find shelter and other essentials.”

Secondly, I share some pieces from various resources on a topic I admittedly knew little about (until today that is)

Polio in General

There is (not) remarkably, a day coined ‘World Polio Day’, it arrives October 24th.

The word poliomyelitis originates from the Greek word “polio” meaning “grey” and “myelon” meaning “marrow.” It is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus, a member of the genus Enterovirus, belonging to the Picornaviridae family. Poliomyelitis is an exclusive human disease transmitted from a patient or a symptom-free carrier through the fecal-oral route. Manifestations are varied ranging from asymptomatic (most common) to the most severe forms of debilitating paralysis. Historians have laid proof of the existence of poliomyelitis in ancient times. Egyptian paintings from the period 1403 to 1365 BC depict children with deformed limbs, walking with sticks. In 1789, an English physician Michael Underwood gave the first clinical description where he referred to polio as “debility of the lower extremities.” Polio was known as Heine-Medin disease due to the contributions of physicians Jakob Heine and Karl Oskar Medin in 1840.

Poliomyelitis is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus belonging to the Picornaviridae family. It finds a mention even in ancient Egyptian paintings and carvings. The clinical features are varied ranging from mild cases of respiratory illness, gastroenteritis, and malaise to severe forms of paralysis. These have been categorized into inapparent infection without symptoms, mild illness (abortive poliomyelitis), aseptic meningitis (nonparalytic poliomyelitis), and paralytic poliomyelitis.

Wild poliovirus cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries to 6 reported cases in 2021. Of the 3 strains of wild poliovirus (type 1, type 2 and type 3), wild poliovirus type 2 was eradicated in 1999 and wild poliovirus type 3 was eradicated in 2020. As at 2022, endemic wild poliovirus type 1 remains in two countries:  Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Polio in Falastin

On July 16, 2024, the Global Polio Laboratory Network (GPLN) reported the detection of six cVDPV2 isolates in environmental samples collected from Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis in Gaza.

“Any disease that [can] spread that way will eventually spread,” says Dr. Majed Jaber, a physician from Gaza who spoke to TIME from Al-Mawasi, a town in Khan Younis. “Kind of a Murphy’s law.”

🎥 Mother of Gaza's first polio case in 25 years pleads for help

Guardian News | Aug 29, 2024

An 11-month-old boy in the Gaza Strip, Abdul-Rahman Abu al-Jidyan, has contracted the first verified case of polio seen there in a quarter of a century. The diagnosis has been linked to the poor conditions that Abdul-Rahman and his family had been staying in as refugees due to the Israel-Hamas war. He is now paralyzed in one leg.

Thirdly (and lastly), I wish the happiest of birthdays to my beautiful baby brother Karim.

Sana Helwa ya Gameel 🤓

And this although an oldie (admittedly still) a cutie, is a picture of us in the land of the yanks (Dec 16, 2018) when he last came to visit.

P.S. we need to take more pictures together when I see you next inshallah. How else am I supposed to embarrass your shit on the internet 🤓?

I love you with all my heart ♥️

And until then, I mostly find peace in the solitude of quiet hours, because as far as my horizon’s sight, this world is more hurt than elate.

Viva la 🇵🇸

🎶 Ren - Hi Ren

Ren | Dec 15, 2022

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