The much-anticipated UN-led campaign to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of Gaza children against polio began on Sunday.
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) reports that although the program technically began a day later in Gaza’s “middle areas,” a first set of babies received polio vaccinations in Gaza on Saturday.
With the help of multiple combat pauses that Israel has consented to, UNRWA, the primary UN agency operating in Gaza, has set goals to immunize 640,000 children living in the war-torn territory. This corresponds to more than 90% of kids under the age of ten.
Health experts in Palestine have emphasised that the proper implementation of the polio vaccination campaign depends on a “true ceasefire.”
Deputy Health Minister Yousef Abu Al-Reesh declared that vaccination teams are dedicated to going “wherever there is a Palestinian person who needs this vaccination, despite the risks” at a press conference held by the Ministry of Health in Gaza to formally commence the campaign.
The vaccinations are set to be carried out over from September 1 to September 12.
UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said that there is a “race against time to reach just over 600,000 children across the Gaza Strip in the coming days” in a post on X on Sunday.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also called for peace in a statement on X:
He said “Children in Gaza are receiving much-needed polio vaccines today. Ultimately, the best vaccine for these children is peace.”
The return of polio to Gaza is a measure of the destruction wrought by more than 10 months of Israeli bombardment.
The UN’s campaign comes after the highly infectious virus was found in sewage samples in the strip in June.
Before the war, Gaza had near-universal polio vaccine coverage, but it has since dropped below 90%.
Polio mostly affects children under 5 years old, and can cause irreversible paralysis and even death. It’s highly infectious and there is no cure. It can only be prevented by immunization, according to the WHO.
The vaccination drive comes as aid agencies reported Israeli attacks on their convoys.
