- The United Nations World Health Organisation (WHO) is launching on Sunday a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children against polio, as Gaza reports its first case of the disease in 25 years.
- Gaza’s healthcare system and roads have been destroyed in the Israel-Hamas war. Gaza’s population is spread across different areas in the territory, making vaccination efforts challenging.
- The WHO said it had reached an agreement with Israel to pause the fighting to allow the vaccine campaign to move forward.
The UN health agency and its partners are launching a campaign on Sunday to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children in Gaza against polio, an ambitious effort amid a devastating war that has devastated the region’s healthcare system.
The campaign was launched after Gaza’s first polio case in 25 years was detected – a 10-month-old boy who is now paralysed in the legs. World Health Organization He said the presence of one case of paralysis suggests there may be hundreds of people who are infected but do not show symptoms.
Most people who get polio don’t have symptoms, and those who do usually recover within a week or two. But there’s no cure, and when polio causes paralysis it’s usually permanent. The disease can be life-threatening if the paralysis affects the breathing muscles.
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The vaccination effort will not be easy: Gaza’s roads are largely destroyed, its hospitals badly damaged and its population spread out in isolated areas.
The WHO said on Thursday it had struck a deal with Israel for a limited pause in fighting so the vaccination campaign could go ahead. Still, such a massive operation would pose major difficulties in a region covered in rubble where 90% of Palestinians are displaced.
How long will it take?
Dr. Rick Pepperkorn, the World Health Organization representative in the Palestinian territories, said a three-day vaccination campaign in central Gaza would begin on Sunday, running from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. during a “humanitarian pause,” and could add another day if needed.
Abdel-Rahman Abu al-Jedian, a displaced infant suffering from polio, is carried by his mother, center, to a makeshift tent camp in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza Strip, August 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Karim Hana)
He said in a press conference held via video from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza that the effort would be pursued alongside similar breaks in southern Gaza and northern Gaza, in coordination with Israeli authorities.
Who will be given the vaccine?
According to the World Health Organization, the vaccination campaign aims to vaccinate 640,000 children under the age of 10. Each child will be given two drops oral polio vaccine In two phases, the second phase will be given four weeks after the first phase.
Where are the vaccination sites?
Vaccination sites are spread across Gaza, inside and outside the Israeli evacuation zones, from Rafah in the south to the northern edge of the territory.
The Ramallah-based Health Ministry said on Friday that there would be more than 400 “fixed” vaccination sites — most in Khan Younis, which has the highest population density and where there are 239,300 children under the age of 10. The fixed sites include health care centers, hospitals, clinics and regional hospitals.
Elsewhere in the region, there will also be about 230 “outreach” sites — community gathering places that are not traditional medical centers — where vaccines will be distributed.
Where are the vaccines now?
Nearly 1.3 million doses of the vaccine passed through the Kerem Shalom checkpoint and are currently being kept in “cold-chain storage” at a warehouse in Deir al-Balah. This means that the warehouse is able to maintain the right temperature so that the vaccines do not lose their potency.
Another consignment of 400,000 doses will be delivered to Gaza soon.
UNICEF spokesman Ammar Ammar said the vaccines will be delivered to distribution sites by a team of more than 2,000 medical volunteers.
What are the challenges ahead?
Any operation that requires crossing the Gaza Strip and interacting with its medical system would pose difficulties.
The UN estimates that about 65% of the total road network in Gaza has been damaged. 19 of the Strip’s 36 hospitals are out of service.
The northern part of the region is cut off from the south, and travel between the two areas has been challenging during the war, because Israeli military operationAid groups have had to postpone their trips due to security concerns after convoys were targeted by the Israeli military.
Peeperkorn said Friday that the WHO cannot carry out door-to-door vaccinations in Gaza, as they have done in other polio campaigns. When asked about the feasibility of this effort, Peeperkorn said the WHO thinks “it is possible if all the pieces of the puzzle are in the right place.”
How many doses do children need and what if they miss a dose?
The World Health Organization says children usually need about three to four doses of the oral polio vaccine to prevent polio — two drops per dose. If they don’t get all the doses, they are vulnerable to infection.
Doctors had previously found that children who were malnourished or had other illnesses might need more than 10 doses of the oral polio vaccine for full protection.
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Are there any side effects?
Yes, but they are very rare.
Billions of doses of the oral vaccine have been given to children worldwide and it is safe and effective. But in about 1 in 2.7 million doses, the live virus in the vaccine can paralyze a child who gets it.
How did this outbreak in Gaza begin?
The poliovirus that has caused this latest outbreak is a mutated virus from the oral polio vaccine. The oral polio vaccine contains weakened live virus and, in very rare cases, this virus is shed by vaccinated people and can evolve into a new form capable of starting a new epidemic.
