Polio Vaccination Campaign in Gaza Enters Second Round
Health workers based in Gaza are preparing to administer a second round of polio vaccinations to approximately 590,000 children starting Monday.
According to official figures provided by the World Health Organization (WHO), the newest effort follows last month’s successful campaign, in which 95% of eligible children under the age of 10 received vaccinations in just under 12 days.
This summer, health experts raised the alarm about a potentially devastating reemergence of polio after detecting the virus in Gaza’s wastewater and diagnosing it in a 10-month-old for the first time in 25 years.
This week’s rollout of the second booster dose is crucial to stopping the virus’s internal spread and potentially preventing a wider international emergency.
However, the success of this round depends on humanitarian pauses in the ongoing conflict.
UNICEF’s Special Representative to the State of Palestine, Jean Gough, stated during a press briefing last Friday that WHO had received assurances from all warring parties within Gaza to halt fighting temporarily for a few hours a day to carry out vaccinations.
The campaign will follow a three-phase rollout, with each phase lasting three to four days. Gazan children will also receive a dose of vitamin A to boost overall immunity.
Originally, WHO planned to vaccinate 640,000 children, but now say they overestimated the number of children within Gaza, a number that has been reportedly impacted by both displacement and casualties suffered during the last year of conflict.
