Mass polio vaccination campaign begins for over 640,000 children in Gaza Strip
Aid agencies are launching a massive campaign in Gaza this Sunday to vaccinate more than 640,000 children in the enclave against polio in 12 days, with 1.3 million doses being distributed in three phases in the midst of the war.
While the initiative actually began last Saturday with the administration of a dozen vaccines to babies at Nasser Hospital in the Gazan city of Khan Younis, south of the enclave, it will be this Sunday that the large-scale deployment of equipment will take place, taking advantage of lulls in the fighting for eight hours spread over four days in three phases.
“The children of Gaza,” said World Health Organization Secretary-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, “have started receiving much-needed vaccines today, but ultimately the best vaccine for these children is peace.”
First, the campaign will continue until the 4th in central Gaza. Starting on September 5, it will return to Khan Yunis and the rest of the southern areas of the enclave, until September 9. The last four days of September are reserved for finalizing the initiative.
in Gaza City and the northern part of the Strip.
The campaign, championed by the UN, was launched after the virus was found in sewage samples from Gaza in June after months of Israeli bombardment. Since then, a baby has become the first person in Gaza in 25 years to be diagnosed with polio.
The Islamist movement Hamas, which controls the enclave's institutions, has held the Israeli offensive directly responsible for “promoting the conditions” for the emergence of polio by deliberately destroying Gaza's health infrastructure. Israel, however, accuses Hamas of being directly responsible for the health crisis by taking refuge in medical centers and vital points for the enclave's population.
Faced with the possibility that this campaign would involve a reduction in hostilities, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly stated that “any information about a ceasefire to distribute vaccines is false.” Instead, “Israel will only allow the opening of a humanitarian corridor for transport workers and establish safe zones for the distribution of vaccines for a few hours.”
The prime minister considered in any case that the campaign was an “important measure to prevent the outbreak of a polio epidemic in Gaza, with the aim also of preventing its spread throughout the region” or, in other words, that it does not reach Israel. (PE)