A new polio vaccination campaign was officially launched on Monday in the central Gaza Strip.
“This morning, the United Nations and its partners will begin administering the second round of polio vaccines to children in the central area of the Gaza Strip,” said representatives of the controversial UN refugee agency. Palestinians (Unrwa).
Deeming this second wave of vaccination “essential”, Unrwa specifies that more than 1,000 humanitarian workers are mobilized in “less than two weeks”.
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As during the previous vaccination campaign, in early September, the United Nations announced that “humanitarian pauses” would allow the vaccination of around 590,000 children, from birth to 10 years old.
Poliomyelitis has reappeared in Gaza for the first time in more than 20 years, against a backdrop of health and humanitarian disaster. The network of pipes has been largely destroyed and wastewater stagnates in the open air, often in the immediate vicinity of dense population centers, which is conducive to the development of this very contagious disease, which can cause paralysis.
This second campaign aims to administer “a booster dose of the vaccine”, explains to AFP Mahmoud Abu Saleel, an employee of the Ministry of Health in Gaza, controlled by Hamas, present in a vaccination center in Deir al-Balah .
“There is a good turnout, people are convinced of the importance of vaccination,” he says happily, in front of lines of children opening their mouths to receive the oral vaccine.
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