CAIRO: The United Nations, in collaboration with Palestinian health authorities, began to vaccinate 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip on Sunday (Sep 1), with Israel and Hamas agreeing to brief pauses in their 11-month war to allow the campaign to go ahead.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) confirmed last month that a baby was partially paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
The campaign began on Sunday in areas of central Gaza, and will move to other areas in coming days. Fighting will pause for at least eight hours on three consecutive days.
The WHO said the pauses will likely need to extend to a fourth day and the first round of vaccinations will take just under two weeks.
“COMPLEX” CAMPAIGN
“This is the first few hours of the first phase of a massive campaign, one of the most complex in the world,” said Juliette Touma, communications director of UNRWA, the UN Palestinian refugee agency.
“Today is test time for parties to the conflict to respect these area pauses to allow the UNRWA teams and other medical workers to reach children with these very precious two drops. It’s a race against time,” Touma told Reuters.