Peres discusses personal experiences with polio
President accompanies health minister on visit to clinic administering polio vaccines. Supports parents who chose to vaccinate children, recounts his son's infection of the virus as baby
Peres arrived at a Jerusalem clinic along with Health Minister Yael German, and the two spoke with hundreds of families arriving at the clinic.
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The president urged parents to trust the health system, taking a personal note as he discussed the fact that one of his children was infected with the polio virus as a baby and was paralyzed in his lower body for over a year.
"I urge every mother and father – prevent this," he told parents at the clinic.
"Three days and three nights Sonia and I were by his bed. We saw him shaking in his little crib, burning with fever and crying of pain," the president said. "I would not wish such experiences on anyone. We prayed it would happen to us instead of to the boy.
"Eventually he overcame it and healed and we thanked God he was alive. It was a horrible experience," Peres added.
Photo: Amos Ben Gershom
Minister German addressed the fact that a strain of the virus was found on Tuesday in a sewage treatment plant in Baqa al-Gharbiyye, near Hadera, marking the northernmost point in which the virus was sampled.
She noted that clinics have been offering vaccines nationwide. "In the south, 60,000 children were vaccinated and 128,000 received the vaccine in the country in the course of three days," the minister stated, adding that despite the resistance some parents have expressed regarding the vaccine, she was pleased that so many have arrived.
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