A United Nations-led polio vaccination campaign reached around 87,000 children in Gaza on its first official day, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said on Monday, citing the World Health Organization.
According to UNRWA, the campaign’s second phase will focus on southern Gaza and the final one in the north. It aims to immunize 640,000 children by September 12. This equates to over 90% of children under the age of 10.
The campaign is facilitated by a series of pauses in fighting agreed to by Israel.
UNRWA spokesperson Louise Wateridge told CNN on Sunday it is “critical” that there will be no fighting during the campaign.
The return of polio to Gaza is a measure of the destruction wrought by more than 10 months of Israeli bombardment. The UN’s campaign comes after the highly infectious virus was found in sewage samples in the strip in June. A baby has since become the first person in Gaza in 25 years to be diagnosed with polio.
Before the war, Gaza had near-universal polio vaccine coverage, but it has since dropped below 90%. Polio mostly affects children under five years old and can cause irreversible paralysis and death. It’s highly infectious and there is no cure. It can only be prevented by immunization.
Gazans under 18 years old make up close to half of the nearly two million people in the enclave, according to Palestinian census figures.
