Polio vaccines arrive in Gaza after first case in 25 years

A polio vaccination campaign has kicked off in the devastated Gaza Strip, almost a week after the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the first case of the disease in decades.

Officials said the campaign would formally launch on Sunday. It comes after the WHO announced on Thursday a series of three-day "humanitarian pauses," signed off by Israel, to facilitate vaccinations.

The campaign involves two doses. Traditionally, the vaccine against the highly infectious disease is administered via three doses, with one to two months between the first two doses, and a third dose in about six to 12 months.

What do we know about the campaign?

The campaign aims to reach over 640,000 children under the age of 10. Some 1.26 million doses of the oral vaccine had been delivered to the besieged strip, WHO Deputy Director-General Michael Ryan told the UN Security Council this week. Some 400,000 more doses have yet to arrive.

Local health officials said they were starting the vaccination campaign with central Gaza. They also aim to stretch it northward and southward. Yousef Abu al-Reesh, Gaza's deputy health minister, meanwhile, said that only a comprehensive cease-fire could guarantee enough children are vaccinated.

"If the international community truly wants this campaign to succeed, it should call for a cease-fire, knowing that this virus does not stop and can reach anywhere," he told reporters at Nasser Hospital in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis.

First polio case in decades

The highly infectious disease often spreads through sewage and contaminated water, problems that have become increasingly common in the Gaza Strip during nearly 11 months of fighting. Health workers in the Hamas-controlled strip have for months warned of a polio outbreak, amid a disruption to vaccinations during the fighting.

Last week, doctors concluded that an unvaccinated 10-month-old from central Gaza was partially paralyzed after contracting the virus. The case was the first to have been recorded in the enclave in 25 years.

Israel has been conducting wide-scale military operations in Gaza since Hamas militants attacked southern Israel on October 7, killing about 1,200 people.

The ongoing fighting, which Israel says aims to eradicate the militant group, has killed over 40,600 people. Health authorities in the Hamas-run strip do not differentiate between civilians and militants in their tolls, but the UN and other humanitarian agencies say the majority of the deaths are women and children.

Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization by the US, Israel, Germany, the European Union and others.

rmt/lo (AFP, AP, Reuters)