The UN will begin vaccinating some 640,000 children against polio in the Gaza Strip on Sunday. It will take place during a daily eight-hour lull in fighting between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movement in parts of the enclave, Reuters reports.
The day before, the First Deputy Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the UN Dmitry Polyansky Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on the humanitarian situation in the enclave, he said Russia was calling on the international community to do everything possible to prevent the spread of polio in the Gaza Strip.
WHO officials said that for the campaign to be successful, at least 90% of children must be vaccinated twice, with a four-week interval between shots.
“This is not ideal” — a senior WHO official for the Palestinian territories told reporters. Richard Pieperkorn.
It should be noted that the vaccination campaign will be carried out in three stages: in the center, south and north of the Gaza Strip.
At each stage, hostilities will be suspended for at least eight hours for three consecutive days. Each vaccination phase could be extended to a fourth day, which the WHO says would likely be necessary. This means the entire vaccination process could take just under two weeks, Reuters reported.
The planned pauses in hostilities are not part of the months-long ceasefire negotiations, the agency wrote.
“The most important thing now is to ensure the security and access necessary to carry out the campaign effectively. I don’t need to tell you how catastrophic it would be if we were unable to contain this disease that knows no borders.” – said the UN Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Joyce Msuya.
July 22, leader of the World Health Organization (WHO) health emergency team Ayadiel Saparbekov The report said traces of the polio virus had been found in wastewater in the Gaza Strip. According to doctors, the continuation of the fires could lead to mass infections and deaths, which would mainly affect children due to the lack of vaccines against the disease, Izvestia recalls.
