Nearly 160,000 children in the Gaza Strip have been vaccinated against polio in two days

Starting from September 1 local time, the Gaza Strip in Palestine has launched a polio vaccination campaign for 640,000 children under 10 years old in the local area. The vaccination work in the central part of the Gaza Strip was first launched.

The health department of the Gaza Strip said on the evening of September 2 that in just two days, 158,992 Palestinian children have been vaccinated. The entire vaccination campaign is carried out in three stages, and each stage will last for 3 to 4 days. On the morning of September 1, a large number of people in Gaza took their children to vaccination sites to get vaccinated. To ensure the safety of the vaccination process, Israel and Hamas agreed to reach a temporary humanitarian ceasefire during the vaccination period. However, the Israeli side refused to implement a comprehensive ceasefire for vaccination and only allowed vaccination personnel to use humanitarian corridors. At the same time, only allowed the establishment of safety zones in some areas at specific times for vaccination.

In July this year, polio virus was found in wastewater samples in Gaza. In late August, a 10-month-old baby was diagnosed with polio. This is the first discovery of such a lifelong disabling disease in Gaza in 25 years. Given that the health system in this area has collapsed after nearly 11 months of war, this development is worrying.

This large-scale vaccination is jointly carried out by the health department of the Gaza Strip, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East and their partners. The United Nations team hopes to complete the vaccination of the first dose of oral polio vaccine for nearly 160,000 children in the central part of Gaza within three days. The second dose of vaccine will be administered four weeks later. The WHO said that given the severe damage to the health, water supply and sanitation systems in the Gaza Strip, at least a 95% vaccination rate is needed during each round of vaccination to prevent the spread of polio and reduce the risk of another polio outbreak. The health department of the Gaza Strip has also set up 138 vaccination sites in hospitals, medical points, schools and food distribution points in the central area to ensure that no child is left behind. At present, the vaccination work is still advancing in an orderly manner.