How WHO and UNICEF want to try to carry out a vaccination campaign for 640,000 children in the Palestinian enclave

While a case has been recorded in a 10-month-old baby, a first in twenty-five years in this territory, the NGO wants to launch two vaccination campaigns at the end of August and in September. To do this, “humanitarian pauses” have been requested from the belligerents.

It had been missing for a quarter of a century. As was feared in recent weeks in the face of the continued deterioration of living conditions and a deplorable health situation in the Gaza Strip, a first case of polio was announced by the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health on Friday, August 16. The disease was diagnosed in a “10 month old baby who had not been vaccinated” in Deir al-Balah, in the center of the overcrowded Palestinian territory, the ministry said. The poliovirus that causes poliomyelitis, which can cause irreversible paralysis within hours, was first detected in wastewater samples collected in late June in Khan Younis, in the south of the Palestinian enclave, and then in Deir al-Balah.

The UN on Friday called for “humanitarian breaks” to vaccinate more than 640,000 children under 10 years old. “It is impossible to conduct a polio vaccination campaign in the middle of a war”insisted UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on X. “A polio break is needed.”

Before him, the WHO (World Health Organization) and UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) had called in a press release for humanitarian pauses of “seven days” in order to set up two vaccination campaigns. These two series “should be launched in late August and September across the entire Gaza Strip to prevent the spread of the variant currently circulating”known as cVDPV2, according to the two UN agencies.

UNICEF has ordered 1.6 million vaccines to launch this vast campaign, Jonathan Crickx, UNICEF’s communications director for Palestine, told franceinfo. But to do this, the belligerents will have to suspend hostilities. “A ceasefire is the only way to ensure public health security in the Gaza Strip and the region”recall the WHO and UNICEF in their press release.

On the logistics side, UNICEF will have to transport “small portable fridges” to preserve vaccines, because “nearly 25% of the cold chain in the Gaza Strip is still functional”according to UNICEF studies. The vaccines and cold chain equipment are expected to transit through Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv, Israel, before arriving in the Gaza Strip in late August.

This operation must mobilize 708 teams and 2,700 health workers, in particular “in hospitals, field hospitals and primary health care centers in every municipality in the Gaza Strip”according to the statement. To prevent the spread of polio and its reappearance, vaccination coverage of at least 95% is necessary during each campaign cycle, it further specifies.

Lack of water, food, medicine and healthcare… In Gaza, the poor living conditions have contributed to the spread of vaccine-preventable diseases such as polio. “There are people who wash with water mixed with sewage, so it creates a lot of diseases”Nabil Diab, a Gazan refugee, told franceinfo. According to a report published in July by the Dutch NGO PAX, hundreds of thousands of tons of waste are piling up in the streets, often near the tents of displaced persons camps.

Added to this is a very disrupted health system. “Since the beginning of this war, we have had approximately 180 babies born every day and, obviously, the vast majority of them are born in very difficult conditions, in hospitals that are failing.explained Jonathan Cricks. It can be considered that the routine vaccination that takes place on all babies after birth is not going well.” Due to the hostilities, routine polio vaccination coverage has indeed fallen from 99% in 2022 to less than 90% in the first quarter of 2024 in Gaza, according to UNICEF.

UNICEF spokesperson for Palestine recalls that there is “absolute emergency” to act against this disease: “Polio does not know borders, it does not know political issues. It is not only the children of Gaza, but all the children in the region who need to be protected.”