WHO says campaign to vaccinate Gazan children against polio set to resume Saturday
Vaccine drive to start back up again after virus detected in wastewater; UN body says some 7,000 children from north Gaza weren’t inoculated in last round due to intense fighting
The World Health Organization said on Wednesday that a mass campaign to vaccinate children against polio in the Gaza Strip would resume on Saturday, with over half a million children targeted.
The campaign will run from February 22 to February 26 and aim to vaccinate 591,000 children under the age of 10 against the disease.
The WHO statement said the decision to restart the vaccination campaign, which first ran in September and October 2024, was made after “the recent detection of poliovirus in wastewater samples in Gaza. ”
Around 95% of children eligible for the polio vaccines were inoculated during the previous mass vaccination campaigns, the WHO said, but “pockets of individuals with low or no immunity provide the virus an opportunity to continue spreading and potentially cause disease.”
“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 cautioned.
Furthermore, it noted that the ongoing ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas that came into effect in January could inadvertently cause the disease to spread further, due to “extensive population movement.”
Poliovirus, most often spread through sewage and contaminated water, is highly infectious. It can cause deformities and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.
The first polio vaccination drive was launched after an unvaccinated 10-month-old baby from central Gaza contracted polio and suffered partial paralysis in August, the first case of the disease in the enclave in 25 years.
More than 1.1 million vaccines were administered during the two previous campaigns, conducted by the WHO and UNICEF, and in coordination with the Coordinator of Government Affairs in the Territories, a Defense Ministry agency that coordinates the provision of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
COGAT said at the time that it had facilitated humanitarian pauses in the fighting in Gaza to allow the distribution of the vaccine.
While no further polio cases have been reported in Gaza since, the WHO said that recently collected environmental samples from Deir al-Balah in the center of the Strip and Khan Younis in the south confirmed polio transmission.
The samples were collected in December 2024 and January 2025, and tests showed that the strain was “genetically linked to the poliovirus detected in the Gaza Strip in July 2024,” the WHO said.
“The upcoming vaccination campaign aims to reach all children under 10 years of age, including those previously missed, to close immunity gaps and end the outbreak,” the international body said. “The use of the oral polio vaccine will help end this outbreak by preventing the spread of the virus.
Among those in need of vaccination are roughly 7,000 children from areas in northern Gaza that healthcare workers could not safely reach during previous rounds, despite coordinated humanitarian pauses, due to intensified fighting in the Jabalia, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahiya areas.
“The recent ceasefire means health workers have considerably better access now,” the WHO said.
An additional polio vaccination drive is scheduled to take place in April.
