Polio vaccine campaign begins in war-torn Gaza

AFP | Jerusalem, Undefined

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A health official said a polio vaccination campaign began in Gaza on Saturday, while an aid worker said a large-scale rollout would begin on Sunday, coinciding with a "humanitarian pause" agreed by Israel and Hamas. The vaccination drive was announced after Gaza recorded its first polio case in a quarter of a century earlier this month.

Local health officials along with the UN and NGOs "are starting today the polio vaccination campaign", Moussa Abed, director of primary health care at the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza, told AFP on Saturday. An unspecified number of children received the first dose of the vaccination, which involves two doses and is administered orally, at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis.

Among them was Amal Shaheen's three-year-old daughter, who was already in the hospital being treated for pneumonia. "We have been in the hospital for 17 days... I spend all my days worrying about her," Shaheen said. "Today she was vaccinated against polio to protect her, like all the children in the hospital have been vaccinated."

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to a series of three-day "humanitarian pauses" in Gaza to facilitate vaccinations, though officials had earlier said the campaign was expected to start on Sunday. An international aid worker told AFP that Palestinian authorities had organised a launch event on Saturday and that the vaccination campaign was still expected to begin in full on Sunday.

After beginning in central Gaza, vaccines are set to be administered in southern Gaza and then in northern Gaza. The campaign aims to cover more than 640,000 children under 10 years old.

Michael Ryan, WHO deputy director-general, told the UN Security Council this week that 1.26 million doses of the oral vaccine had been delivered in Gaza, with another 400,000 still to arrive The Ramallah-based Palestinian health ministry said earlier this month that tests in Jordan had confirmed polio in an unvaccinated 10-month-old baby from central Gaza.