Three-day polio vaccination campaign kicks off in besieged Gaza Strip

CAIRO – 31 August 2024: The three-day campaign of polio vaccination in the Gaza Strip kicked off on Saturday, Al Qahera News reported.

According to a statement by Director General of Primary Care at the Ministry of Health, Musa Abed, the campaign has started at the Nasser Medical Hospital in the strip.

The vaccination campaign will start tomorrow, Sunday, in the Central Governorate, then in Khan Younis in the south, followed by the Gaza and North Governorates, and will take 4 days in each area, he added. However, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) announced the campaign would last for three days.

A total of 640,000 children under the age of 10 will receive vaccines in 60 fixed medical points in the Strip, and work is underway to establish other mobile medical points to ensure that vaccinations reach everyone, he continued.

Al-Maghazi and Al-Bureij are not among the areas that the occupation has classified as safe during the humanitarian truce period, which will start daily from 6 am until 2 pm.

Israel consented on Friday to brief halts in its war on Gaza to facilitate polio immunizations for more than 640,000 children under the age of ten, as announced by the UN World Health Organization (WHO) on Thursday.

Rik Peeperkorn, WHO's representative for the occupied Palestinian Territory, revealed that the vaccination drive will kick off on Sunday, September 1, and will be executed in three-day phases, commencing with central Gaza and progressing to south and then north Gaza.

During a press briefing on Thursday, he mentioned that the pause will span from 6 AM to 3 PM for three days, with the possibility of extension for an additional day if required.

During each round of the campaign, the Palestinian Ministry of Health, in collaboration with WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the UN Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) and partners will administer two drops of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2).

This initiative follows the case of 10-month-old Abdel Rahman Abu El-Jedian, who was partially paralyzed by a mutated strain of polio, marking the first confirmed instance in 25 years within the Palestinian territory.