The WHO said health workers need to vaccinate at least 90% of children in Gaza to prevent polio infections. | Photo credit: AP
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday (August 30, 2024) that it has reached an agreement with Israel Limited pause in fighting in Gaza Millions of children have been given the green light to receive polio vaccines in the Palestinian territory after a child tested positive for the first time in 25 years.
The vaccination campaign will begin on Sunday in central Gaza, with a “humanitarian pause” lasting from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. for three days, which could be extended for an additional day if needed, said Rick Pepperkorn, the World Health Organization representative in the Palestinian territories.
WHO sees ‘high risk’ of poliovirus outbreak in Gaza, assessment ongoing
“This effort – which is coordinated with the Israeli authorities – will then lead to a similar break in southern Gaza and finally in northern Gaza,” he told a UN news conference via video from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza.
“I wouldn’t say this is the ideal way to go forward. But it is a practical way to go forward,” Mr Peeparkorn said. The vaccination drive targets 640,000 children under the age of 10, who will each be given two drops of the oral polio vaccine in two stages – with the second dose given four weeks after the first.
Mr Peeperkorn said the ban was important on humanitarian grounds so families could bring their children for vaccination and return to their residences by 3pm. “We have an agreement on this, so we expect all parties to abide by it,” he said.
War-torn Gaza faces uphill battle against polio
The WHO said health workers need to vaccinate at least 90% of children in Gaza to prevent polio transmission. The campaign will involve more than 2,100 health workers from UN agencies and the Gaza Health Ministry, working in hundreds of locations across Gaza and with mobile teams.
This pause on humanitarian grounds is not the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas that mediators the United States, Egypt and Qatar have long sought, including in talks underway this week.
According to a statement by Bassam Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, Hamas is “ready to cooperate with international organizations to secure this operation.”
Before the plan was announced, an Israeli official said some sort of strategic pause was expected to allow vaccinations to proceed. The official spoke on condition of anonymity before the plan was finalized.
Israel had no immediate comment on Thursday. The Israeli military has already announced a limited pause in certain areas to allow international humanitarian operations.
Aid groups in Gaza aim to stop polio outbreak by increasing vaccinations
US Deputy Ambassador to the United Nations Robert Wood urged Israel to avoid issuing evacuation orders for civilians during the pause, saying staff needed protection to vaccinate children.
“It is particularly important for Israel to facilitate access for the agencies carrying out the vaccination campaign and to ensure a period of peace and a distance from military operations during the vaccination campaign period,” he said.
The campaign comes after 10-month-old Abdel-Rahman Abu al-Jedian was partially paralysed by a mutated strain of the virus that is excreted in the stool of vaccinated people, the scientists said. The child was not vaccinated because he was born just before October 7, when Hamas militants attacked Israel and Israel retaliated by attacking Gaza.
He is one of millions of children who have missed out on vaccinations because of the fighting between Israel and Hamas.
Polio has been eradicated from most of the world as part of a decades-long effort by the World Health Organization and its partners to eradicate it. Healthcare workers in Gaza have been warning for months about the possibility of a polio outbreak, as the Israeli invasion worsens the humanitarian crisis.
Displaced Palestinians often live in crowded tent camps with piles of trash and dirty water running through the streets, which aid workers describe as breeding grounds for diseases such as polio, which is spread through feces.
The polio strain that infected the 10-month-old child evolved from a weakened virus that was originally part of an oral vaccine but was removed from the vaccine in 2016 in hopes of preventing vaccine-induced outbreaks. Public health officials knew the decision would leave people unprotected against that particular strain, with scientists saying the case is the result of an “unqualified failure” of public health policy.