UN says administering 2nd dose of polio vaccine in Gaza will be ‘more complicated’
Agencies prepping to begin 2nd round of inoculations on Monday after 1st reached target of 90% of children under 10; initiative will see localized ‘humanitarian pauses’ in fighting
A campaign starting next week to give hundreds of thousands of children in war-stricken Gaza the necessary second dose of polio vaccine will be “more complicated” than the first round, the UN said Friday.
The United Nations agencies for health and for children said they were gearing up to start providing follow-up doses to some 591,700 children under the age of 10 across Gaza from Monday.
That follows a first vaccination round implemented from September 1 to 12, which Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s representative for the Palestinian territories, hailed Friday as “a massive achievement.”
Two doses of vaccine must be administered four weeks apart to prevent the spread of the virus, which was detected in sewage samples in Gaza in June, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
The vaccination campaign began after the first confirmed polio case in 25 years was reported in the Gaza Strip when an unvaccinated 10-month-old from central Gaza contracted polio in July and suffered partial paralysis, leading to concerns of a wider outbreak.
Like the last round, the upcoming campaign will take part in three phases, aided by localized “humanitarian pauses” in fighting: first in central Gaza, then in the south and finally in the hardest-to-reach north of the territory.
Speaking via video link from Jerusalem, Peeperkorn told reporters he had “confidence” in the hundreds of teams ready to roll out the second stage of the campaign.
But he acknowledged he was “concerned about the developments in the north” of the Strip where Israel has dramatically escalated its operations and has issued a string of evacuation orders.
“We are concerned,” agreed Jean Gough of UNICEF.
“The conditions on the ground are really more complicated this time,” she told the briefing, also speaking from Jerusalem.
She emphasized the need to fully vaccinate at least 90 percent of children to ensure polio does not spread.
“It will be absolutely critical that not only the localized humanitarian pauses are respected in the north, but also that people are not forced to move from one area to another,” she said.
Gough stressed that the UN had held numerous meetings with Israeli authorities and had received confirmation from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), an Israeli government agency, that the humanitarian pauses would be implemented.
“This worked in the last round and we are confident” it will work again, she said.
“It is difficult, but it is possible.”
The first round of the vaccine administration ended successfully last month with 90% of children under 10 receiving their first dose, officials said.
COGAT offered its thanks to WHO and UNICEF at the end of the first round for its efforts in the campaign and did not mention UNRWA, an organization Israel has repeatedly accused of collaborating with Hamas.
The Gaza war began on October 7 last year, when Hamas terrorists stormed across the border and carried out the worst attack in Israeli history.
The terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, triggering the ongoing war.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 42,000 people in the Strip have been killed or are presumed dead in the fighting so far, though the toll cannot be verified and does not differentiate between civilians and fighters. Israel says it has killed some 17,000 combatants in battle as of August and another 1,000 terrorists inside Israel on October 7.
Israel has said it seeks to minimize civilian fatalities and stresses that Hamas uses Gaza’s civilians as human shields, fighting from civilian areas including homes, hospitals, schools, and mosques.
