(Geneva) The anti-polio vaccination campaign targeting children in Gaza began on Tuesday in the north of the Palestinian territory, the WHO said, although a convoy carrying fuel and experts was “hindered”.
Following the discovery of the first case of polio in Gaza in 25 years, a large-scale campaign began on 1er September, with the help of “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting, targeting 640,000 children under ten.
After the centre and south of the Gaza Strip, the campaign will move to the north “from 10 to 12 September”, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tarik Jasarevic, told journalists.
The goal is to prevent the spread of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2). Two drops of nVPO2 vaccine should be given four weeks apart.
Maher Shamiya, deputy health minister in the Gaza Strip, told AFP that 230 teams were working to distribute the vaccines and that there had already been “a significant turnout of families wanting to vaccinate their children.”
“I came to protect my children from polio,” said Samah Yahya, 38, a mother of two from Gaza City.
The Gaza Health Ministry reported in August the first case of polio in 25 years in the Palestinian territory ravaged by war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas and in the grip of a humanitarian disaster.
Vaccines, cold chain equipment and other supplies “were delivered to northern Gaza yesterday,” the WHO spokesperson said, but “a WHO mission carrying fuel for polio campaign hospitals and vehicles, as well as experts monitoring it, was hampered.”
The mission waited three hours for the Israeli green light, “then five hours at the holding point, after which the mission had to be cancelled,” he said.
PHOTO OMAR AL-QATTAA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
A Palestinian doctor unpacks polio vaccines.
Access difficulties
WHO is concerned that some areas of northern Gaza are being hit by Israeli evacuation orders despite being part of areas where humanitarian pauses have been decided.
Jasarevic said another WHO mission to reach Gaza’s largest hospital, al-Shifa in the north, was also “impeded” on Monday. It was the fourth time in four days that the WHO had failed to reach the hospital.
“We call for safe and sustainable access to the north and a functioning deconfliction system, which remains a challenge 11 months into the war,” the WHO spokesperson said, saying the number of requests for access to the north that were denied had “doubled in August compared to previous months.”
PHOTO OMAR AL-QATTAA, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Palestinians line up with their children during a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza City, September 10, 2024.
A UN spokesman, Jens Laerke, also told journalists that of the 208 attempts by the UN to access the northern Gaza Strip in August, only 74 resulted in the delivery of the planned aid.
“Forty-four were hindered, meaning they were blocked or delayed on the ground, leading to some of them being cancelled, while 72 were simply refused,” he said, adding that the rest were cancelled by the UN for logistical, operational or security reasons.
The October 7 attack by Hamas in southern Israel left 1,205 people dead, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli data.
In response, Israel launched a major offensive in Gaza that left more than 41,000 dead, according to the health ministry of the Hamas government in the Gaza Strip.