Juan Cole
Informed Comment / September 2, 2024
UN News reports that the initial stage of a UN-led polio immunization initiative commenced Sunday in the central regions of Gaza. The undertaking aims to vaccinate 600,000 youngsters in the upcoming days. To curb the polio outbreak in Gaza and avert an international spread of the virus, health workers need to immunize at least 90 percent of children in each round.
Although Israeli authorities pledged to implement pauses in fighting in vaccination hubs, UN officials say that these measures are insufficient and that a more extensive pause in fighting or even a ceasefire is necessary to safeguard the lives of the vaccination workers and of the parents and children lining up for the shots.
The campaign will be executed in phases, spanning three days each, and covering three different areas of Gaza. Vaccination coverage will be tracked and analyzed daily, and the vaccination drives will be extended by an additional day if required. The Middle East Monitor writes, “Richard Peeperkorn, the WHO’s representative in the occupied Palestinian territories, stated that the polio vaccination campaign would consist of ‘two rounds.’”
Speaking to global media on Sunday, Sam Rose, a spokesperson for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, announced that over 200 teams are delivering the vaccine in 25 locations across the central regions of Gaza, in a race against time.
MEMO adds, “The WHO announced that the vaccination campaign in Deir al-Balah, located in central Gaza, would continue until Sept. 4. In Khan Younis, a city in southern Gaza where Israeli attacks continue, the polio vaccination campaign for children under 10 began Saturday evening.”
UNRWA posted on X:
Today, our teams went to @unrwa health centres, mobile medical points and tent to tent to provide #polio vaccinations to children in the middle area of the #GazaStrip
Tomorrow, they will do the same.
We are doing everything possible to help all children under 10 years of age receive the vaccination.
Temporary area pauses are critical to provide these vaccinations. Beyond the pause, these children need a long overdue #Ceasefire
Numerous Gazan families have been lining up to await their children’s turn to receive a polio immunization since early Sunday morning, in a campaign that aims to halt the resurgence of a virus driven by unsanitary conditions.
Responding to the launch on social media, Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA, wrote at X:
“I am relieved” says a mother in #Gaza after her baby girl receives the two drops of vaccines in @UNRWA
clinic. 1st phase of the #polio campaign kicks off in the middle areas.
This is a race against time to reach just over 600,000 children across the Gaza Strip in the coming days.
For this to work, parties to the conflict must respect the temporary area pauses. For the sake of children across the region a lasting ceasefire is overdue.”
The vaccination effort – orchestrated by UNRWA, the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Palestinian Ministry of Health – will proceed in the forthcoming days if the temporary ceasefire between Hamas and Israeli forces endures.
Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment; he is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan and the author of, among others, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
