Tel Aviv, Mar 03, 2023, IANS

Tel Aviv, March 3 (IANS) Israel has reported three new cases of children infected with polio, the Ministry of Health said in a statement.

The cases were detected during an epidemiological investigation after an eight-year-old boy from northern Israel tested positive for the virus earlier this week, Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying.

The Ministry added that the three children, who were in close contact with the boy, currently have no clinical symptoms.

A polio outbreak occurred in March 2022 in Israel with the detection of nine cases, prompting the Ministry to conduct an extensive vaccination campaign for people aged 17 and under.

In July, it announced that the spread of the virus had stopped, but the virus was discovered again in recent months in sewage systems across the country.

The Ministry noted that there are currently more than 150,000 children in Israel who have not been vaccinated against the virus.

The infectious polio disease spreads rapidly and can cause paralysis and, on rare occasions, even death.