During the weekend’s pause in hostilities in central Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinian children received the first dose of a polio vaccine administered by United Nations and relief agencies in the challenging campaign to protect 640,000 children from the disease.
Families flocked to war-damaged hospitals, clinics and schools and mobile teams moved through tent encampments. At least 86,000 children under the age of 10 were vaccinated on Sunday when the campaign began, said Juliette Touma, communications director with the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency Unrwa.
Some 27,000 health workers are involved in the campaign.
“So far, it’s going well, and the turnaround is really good,” UN children’s fund Unicef spokesman Salim Oweis said in a BBC interview.
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During the first phase in the central Deir al-Balah area that concludes on Tuesday, a total of 57,000 children are to receive the vaccine. The second phase, in Khan Younis in the south, will take place from Thursday through Sunday and the third phase in Gaza City and the north will take place next Sunday and Monday.
Hostilities permitting, the campaign is to resume in four weeks to enable administering of the second dose.
Vaccination is essential as there is no cure for polio, which begins with flu-like symptoms and can result in irreversible paralysis.
Israel and Hamas agreed on three eight-hour local pauses in fighting on consecutive days after the discovery of the virus in wastewater in June.
The roll-out became urgent after 10-month-old Abdel-Rahman Abu-Jedian became Gaza’s first case in 25 years. His legs were initially paralysed, then his arms. Now he cannot bend to sit. Having been displaced five times, his family is living in a tent at Deir al-Ballah. The World Health Organisation said his case indicates there could be hundreds more children who have been infected without displaying symptoms.
Touma said the vaccination campaign is huge and one of the most complex in the world. “Today is test time for parties to the conflict to respect these area pauses to allow the Unrwa teams and other medical workers to reach children with these very precious two drops. It’s a race against time,” she said.
Israel permitted the delivery of 126 million vaccine doses in refrigerated lorries via the Kerem Shalom crossing and another 400,000 are expected. Storing the vaccine at the correct temperature is particularly difficult in Gaza, which has no steady source of power.
After agreeing to the entry of vaccines and pauses in fighting, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s office said: “Israel considers it important to prevent the outbreak of polio in the Gaza Strip, including with the aim of preventing the spread of epidemics in the entire region.”
Israeli forces killed at least 48 Palestinians on Sunday across the Gaza Strip as they battled Hamas-led militants, Palestinian officials said on Monday.
The West Bank Palestinian news agency on Sunday reported 40,738 fatalities and 94,154 wounded in the 10-month war.
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