UN Agencies Begin Vaccination Against Polio In Gaza

The first full day of a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children against polio in Gaza has been successful, the UN says.

The rollout relies on a series of localised pauses in fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters, and the first three-day window began on Sunday.

“So far, it’s going well and the turnaround is really good,” Salim Oweis, a spokesman for the UN children’s fund Unicef, told the BBC.

To be effective, the World Health Organization (WHO) says at least 90% of children under 10 must be immunized in a short time frame.

The drive follows the first confirmed case of polio in 25 years in Gaza.

Around 1.3 million doses of the vaccine were recently brought in through the Kerem Shalom checkpoint by Unicef.

The agency has had to keep them in cold storage in its warehouse at the correct temperature to maintain their potency.

Another shipment of 400,000 doses is set to be delivered to Gaza soon.On Sunday, Palestinians were able to take their children to three health centres in central Gaza in the first phase of the campaign, which will later extend to the north and the south.
Nearly 2,000 children were vaccinated at the Deir el-Balah clinic alone, said UN spokeswoman, Louise Wateridge.

Among the parents who rushed their children to receive doses was Ghadir Hajji, a mother of five.

Unicef’s Jonathan Crickx says it is crucial that these temporary truces hold.
“You cannot lead and implement a polio vaccination campaign in an active combat zone. It’s simply impossible,” he says.