Of the “humanitarian pauses” with uncertain contours must begin on Sunday 1is September, to enable large-scale vaccination against polio in the Gaza Strip, where a first case was recently confirmed in a 10-month-old baby.
The campaign, announced by Israel and the government of the Islamist Hamas movement in Gaza, aims to vaccinate more than 640,000 children under the age of 10 in the besieged Palestinian territory devastated by nearly eleven months of war.
Vaccines against the disease were administered as early as Saturday. But it was not until Sunday that the campaign officially began in Gaza, where polio was eradicated 25 years ago. Some 1.2 million doses of the nOPV2 vaccine, which consists of two drops administered orally, were sent by the UN. The second dose of the vaccine must be received four weeks after the first.
On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Israel had accepted a series of “humanitarian pauses” three days each in the center, then the south and the north of the Gaza Strip. Denying “reports of a general ceasefire” To enable this vaccination campaign, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has announced that Israel “will allow[it] only a humanitarian corridor”.
Israeli authorities said the vaccines would be administered from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday through Tuesday in the center of the territory, where the first case of polio – in a 10-month-old baby – was confirmed.
They also announced three days of vaccination at the same times in the south and then in the north of the Gaza Strip, whose 2.4 million inhabitants are now almost all displaced.
Due in part to damaged roads and displaced populations, the UN had said it might need an extra day for each area.
Vaccination coverage of at least 90% is needed in each phase of the campaign to prevent the outbreak, according to the UN.
