polio vaccine to a Palestinian child in Khan Younis, Gaza, on Saturday.” class=”image__dam-img image__dam-img–loading” onload=”this.classList.remove(‘image__dam-img–loading’)” onerror=”imageLoadError(this)” height=”1333″ width=”2000″ loading=”lazy”/>
The second phase of the UN-led vaccination campaign against polio is well underway in southern Gaza, with over 140,000 children under 10 vaccinated in the area on Saturday.
UNRWA, the main UN agency in Gaza, has set ambitious targets for the vaccination campaign, which began at the start of September, pledging to immunize 640,000 children in the enclave, equating to over 90% of children under the age of 10.
Health officials have been carrying out the campaign in three-day installments based on geographic area, starting with central Gaza, followed by south Gaza and finally north Gaza. Each child is due to receive two doses of the vaccine, administered in two rounds four weeks apart.
On Saturday, 145,202 children under 10 years old received their second polio dose while 119,055 children between 2-10 years received vitamin A supplements in south Gaza, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a post on their official X account.
Facilitated by a series of pauses in fighting agreed to by the Israeli military, the campaign has not been without its challenges. Last week, vaccinations due to take place at a UN school in central Gaza where displaced Palestinians are sheltering had to be canceled after the building sustained “severe damage” from an Israeli airstrike.
Preventing polio in Gaza: More than 560,000 children below the age of 10 in Gaza received their first doses of the vaccine in September, according to WHO. Though Gaza had near-universal polio vaccine coverage before the war, the rate had dropped to below 90% when the vaccination campaign started – made urgent after Israel’s destruction of water and sanitation systems led to a resurgence of the deadly disease in the besieged strip.
Polio mostly affects children under 5 and can cause irreversible paralysis and even death. It is highly infectious and there is no cure. According to WHO, it can only be prevented by immunization.