The Ministry of Health will launch a polio vaccination campaign later this week, a senior official said on Sunday.
The move comes after health authorities earlier this month confirmed the first case of the potentially debilitating disease in the country in more than 30 years.
Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis, director of public health at the ministry, told the Kan public broadcaster that the campaign will aim to complete the two-dose vaccination schedule for children aged three months to 17 years who have only received a single dose.
She explained that during the years 2005-2013, vaccinations against polio were reduced as the disease was defeated in the country, and that many babies who have since passed through the health system have not received both doses.
The campaign, called “Two Drops”, will start later this week in Jerusalem, where the case of the disease was identified, and will then be extended to the rest of the country.
“We are definitely seeing a polio outbreak in Israel,” Ms. Alroy-Preis said.
Earlier this month, the Health Ministry confirmed that a mutated form of the virus – which can cause illness in unvaccinated people – was found in a 4-year-old boy in Jerusalem who had not been vaccinated against disease.
Since then, seven cases of polio have been reported in the Jerusalem area, but so far only one has shown symptoms.
The case would be Israel’s first polio diagnosis since 1989, after Israel largely eradicated the disease through a massive vaccination campaign.