From WHO says campaign to vaccinate Gazan children against polio set to resume Saturday
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A child receives a vaccination for polio at a make-shift camp for people displaced by conflict in a school run by the UNRWA in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip on September 5, 2024 amid the ongoing war in the Palestinian territory between Israel and Hamas. (Bashar TALEB / AFP)
The World Health Organization says a mass campaign to vaccinate children against polio in Gaza will resume on Saturday, with over half a million children targeted.
“The current environment in Gaza, including overcrowding in shelters and severely damaged water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure, which facilitates fecal-oral transmission, create ideal conditions for further spread of poliovirus,” the WHO statement says.
“Extensive population movement consequent to the current ceasefire is likely to exacerbate the spread of poliovirus infection,” it adds.
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