Polio vaccination targets surpassed for Gaza children, WHO says

[September 03, 2024]  GENEVA (Reuters) -The World Health Organization said that it was ahead of its targets for polio vaccinations in Gaza on Tuesday, day three of a mass campaign, and had inoculated about a quarter of children under 10.

The campaign, which was hastened after the discovery of the first polio case in a Gazan baby last month, relies on daily eight-hour pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in specific areas of the besieged enclave.

Rik Peeperkorn, WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian territories, told reporters that it had vaccinated more than 161,000 children under 10 in the central area in the first two days of its campaign, compared with a projection of around 150,000.

That amounts to about a quarter of the total population targeted in the campaign to stop the spread of the disease, which can cause paralysis and even death in young children.

"Up until now things are going well," he said. "These humanitarian pauses, up until now they work. We still have 10 days to go."

Health teams will move on to southern Gaza later this week, where they are aiming to reach some 340,000 children, he said, followed by northern Gaza.

A Palestinian girl is vaccinated against polio, at a United Nations healthcare center in Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, September 1, 2024. REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo

He said that some children in southern Gaza were thought to be outside the agreed zone for the pauses and that negotiations continued in order to reach them.

The WHO says that at least 90% of Gazan children need to be vaccinated in order for the campaign to work and to prevent the spread of polio both within Gaza and across borders.

(Reporting by Emma Farge; editing by Matthias Williams and Alex Richardson)

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