Beginning on September 1, Israel will implement brief ceasefires to allow young children in Gaza to receive polio vaccinations. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations will coordinate the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, which will take place in three phases. Each of the three three-day sessions will focus on a different area of Gaza, comprising the northern, southern, and central districts.
Israel will start these short ceasefires in Gaza on September 1 to hasten the polio vaccination program there. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations will supervise this vital three-stage campaign. During a news briefing, Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the West Bank and Gaza, accepted this idea. He highlighted the need for regional humanitarian pauses to ensure the success of the immunization program.
According to an Israeli source, every round will take about seven hours, and the vaccination campaign will start on September 1. Two doses of immunizations are to be given to 640,000 youngsters under the age of ten under the initiative. The World Health Organization has sent 500 immunization carriers and 1.26 million doses to Gaza to support this endeavor. Peeperkorn also said that should the planned delays not cover the targeted area; the campaign may call for an extension. Moreover, Hamas, the dominating political group in Gaza, has approved the immunization campaign. Member of Hamas’s political secretariat, Basem Naim, said his group is ready to work with other agencies to guarantee the campaign’s success.
Initiated in reaction to the discovery of a polio case, the first polio vaccination campaign in Gaza in twenty-five years emphasizes the seriousness of the problem. The intensification of the violence last year has resulted in the coverage of polio vaccines in Gaza dropping to just over 80%. The World Health Organization has highlighted the need for a coverage rate higher than 90% to stop the virus from spreading further.
