GAZA – The United Nations, in cooperation with Palestinian health authorities, began vaccinating 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip on Sunday after Israel and Palestinian militant groups agreed to brief pauses in fighting in the 11-month-old war to allow the campaign to take place.
Last month, the World Health Organization confirmed that an infant had been partially paralyzed by poliovirus type 2, the first such case in the Strip in 25 years.
The campaign began on Sunday in areas in central Gaza and will spread to others in the coming days. The fighting is scheduled to stop for at least eight hours over three consecutive days.
The WHO expects that the pauses in fighting will need to be extended for a fourth day and that the first round of the vaccination campaign will take just under two weeks.
By the end of the first day, the Gaza Health Ministry said at least 72,611 children had been vaccinated.
Children and their families gathered at a UN-run clinic in the central Gaza Strip city of Deir al-Balah, where about a million displaced people have taken refuge, according to Palestinian officials.
Medical staff marked the fingers of children who received the vaccination drops with pens.
Afnan Al-Muqayyad, a mother from Gaza, said, “I came to the agency today to vaccinate my daughters against polio. God willing, we will not see another disease more severe than the one we are experiencing. God willing, there will be a solution to the situation and we will return to our homes safe and sound, God willing.”
Polio is just one of the many concerns that plague Afnan’s mind, as she explained, “Skin diseases are spreading at an abnormal rate. There are no detergents. The detergents are very expensive, so we can’t afford them. Not to mention food, food is expensive, and our whole life is expensive. The children’s weights are very low, I mean, thank God, they weren’t like this before.”
Reuters
#launches #polio #vaccination #campaign #Gaza #fighting #escalates
2024-09-02 00:42:56
