Israeli authorities agree to localized ‘humanitarian pauses’ for polio vaccination, WHO announces

Israeli authorities have agreed to a series of “humanitarian breaks” three days each in the centre, south and north of the Gaza Strip, to allow the launch of the campaign to vaccinate children against polio on Sunday, September 1, announced a World Health Organization (WHO) official, Rik Peeperkorn, on Thursday. “What we discussed and what was accepted is that the campaign will start on September 1, in the center of Gaza, for three days, and there will be a humanitarian pause.” for several hours every day, the WHO representative in Gaza said at a press conference. The same system is then planned for the south and north of the territory.

On August 16, the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health announced that a first Polio case confirmed in Gaza. This highly contagious disease, which invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis in a matter of hours, according to Pasteur Institutewas diagnosed in a “ten month old baby who had not been vaccinated” in Deir al-Balah, in the cbetween Palestinian territorythe ministry said.