Geneva: The World Health Organization announced Friday that after Israeli bombardment stopped the push, the second round of child polio vaccines in northern Gaza would finally start on Saturday.
A day after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken asked Israel to expedite the campaign’s conclusion, the announcement that the last stage of polio vaccination in the Gaza Strip could proceed.
After the first polio case in 25 years was confirmed in the besieged Palestinian territories, the vaccination campaign got underway on September 1.
The first round of vaccination was finished throughout the Gaza Strip, with the help of alleged humanitarian pauses in the fighting. The second round is necessary to develop immunity and started as planned on October 14 in central Gaza and subsequently the south.
However, the WHO postponed the last four-day phase in the north, which was supposed to start on October 23, because of “intense bombardment” that made the ground conditions “impossible.”
Last month, Israel said it aimed to prevent Hamas terrorists from assembling in northern Gaza by launching a significant air and ground attack.
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WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday on X, “Polio vaccination in northern Gaza is ready to resume tomorrow. We are sure of the necessary humanitarian pause in Gaza City to conduct the campaign.” “Unfortunately, the area covered is substantially reduced compared to the first round of vaccination, which will leave some children unprotected and at higher risk of infection.”
The UN health agency initially cited that many children would have missed their second dose since the authorized area for humanitarian pauses had been reduced to Gaza City alone.
“Efforts to stop the transmission of poliovirus in Gaza would be seriously jeopardized,” it had stated. While 452,000 children in central and southern Gaza have received their second medication, 119,000 youngsters in the north are still awaiting it.
According to the WHO, 90 percent of all children under 10 in a community must receive multiple doses of oral vaccination to stop the spread of the poliovirus.
The poliovirus is highly infectious and is usually transmitted via sewage and tainted water. It primarily affects children under five years old, can result in malformations and paralysis, and has the potential to be lethal.
In recent weeks, Israel has redoubled its efforts to expel Palestinian fighters from northern Gaza.
On Thursday, Tedros denounced an Israeli assault that had destroyed newly delivered life-saving equipment and injured people at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza earlier in the day.
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Margaret Harris, a WHO spokeswoman, stated that the hospital’s malnutrition stabilization center had closed “due to the attacks,” implying that no such institution remained in the north.
She told a media briefing on Friday, “Before that occurred, we were seeing an increasing number, month on month, of children with severe acute malnutrition who were requiring treatment.”
“We’ve not seen any food aid enter north Gaza since October 2. People are running out of ways to cope. The food systems have collapsed, and the opportunity to care for those at the most critical stage is not there anymore.”
“Over 86 percent of the population across Gaza is experiencing high levels of food insecurity. It’s always the children who suffer the most.”
