Geneva: After Israeli bombing stopped the push to vaccinate children against polio, the World Health Organization announced Friday that the second round of immunizations would start on Saturday in northern Gaza.
One day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made an urgent plea to Israel to expedite the campaign’s conclusion, the announcement was made that the last stage of the polio vaccination program in the Gaza Strip could proceed.
Following the confirmation of the first polio case in 25 years in the besieged Palestinian territories, the vaccination campaign got underway on September 1.
With the help of alleged humanitarian pauses in the fighting, the second round of vaccination, which is necessary to develop immunity, started as planned on October 14 after the first round was finished throughout the Gaza Strip.
However, because to “heavy shelling” that made the conditions on the ground “difficult,” the WHO delayed the final phase in the north, which was supposed to start on October 23.
Last month, Israel said it aimed to prevent Hamas terrorists from assembling in northern Gaza by launching a significant air and ground attack.
According to Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO chief, “Polio vaccination in northern Gaza is ready to commence tomorrow,” he stated on X on Friday.
Unfortunately, the area covered is far smaller than the first round of immunization, which will leave some children unprotected and at higher risk of illness. “We are assured of the essential humanitarian pause in Gaza City to perform the program.”
The UN health agency stated in its initial justification for delaying vaccines in the north that many children would have missed their second dose since the authorized area for humanitarian pauses in the north had been reduced to Gaza City alone.
It had stated that doing so would “seriously jeopardize attempts to control the propagation of poliovirus in Gaza.” The Who is representative in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn, announced last Friday that 119,000 children in the north were still awaiting their second shot, while 452,000 children in central and southern Gaza had already received their first dose.
According to the WHO, 90 percent of all children under 10 in a community must receive the oral vaccination, which requires at least two distinct doses to stop the spread of the poliovirus.
Usually transmitted by sewage and tainted water, poliovirus is extremely contagious.
It primarily affects children under the age of five and has the potential to be lethal, causing malformations and paralysis. According to Tedros, the WHO and UNICEF, the UN agency for children, called for respect for the humanitarian pauses.
But he noted that what the kids in northern Gaza and throughout the entire Strip truly need is peace.