A polio vaccination campaign began in the Gaza Strip on September 1, with 72,611 children inoculated on the first day, officials said. Health authorities aim to vaccinate 640,000 children in the coming days.
Polio is a disease that can cause limb paralysis or even death in children. The vaccination campaign comes after the first case of polio in 25 years was detected in Gaza last month, underscoring the deterioration of health services following nearly 11 months of Israeli military operations.
Hamas and Israel agreed to a temporary cessation of hostilities in specific areas of Gaza for at least eight hours daily from Sunday to Tuesday. This truce has allowed the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Palestinian medical staff to launch a complex vaccination operation.
Richard Peeperkorn, WHO spokesperson in Gaza, said, “What we discussed and agreed upon is that the vaccination campaign will start on September 1 in central Gaza, will last three days, and there will be a humanitarian pause for several hours each day.”
The United Nations has distributed approximately 1.2 million doses of the nOPV2 vaccine, with a second dose scheduled for four weeks after the initial jab.
On August 23, the WHO confirmed that at least one infant had been paralysed after contracting polio, marking the first such case in the Gaza Strip since 1999.
Parents interviewed by AFP expressed their intention to have their children vaccinated, citing fears of epidemics in the Palestinian enclave. Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced since the onset of the conflict.
(philenews with information from in.gr)
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