Polio Vaccinations in Gaza Are Beating Goals, W.H.O. Says

The World Health Organization said on Tuesday that the campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza against polio had so far been more successful than expected as families flocked to receive the treatment.

Teams of health workers delivered the two-drop oral vaccine to 161,030 children in the first two days of the roughly 10-day operation, surpassing the organization’s goal of 150,000 for the first phase of the campaign in central Gaza.

“It’s going well,” Rik Peeperkorn, the organization’s representative for the Palestinian territories, told reporters by video link from Gaza on Tuesday, describing an “almost festive” atmosphere as families went to designated sites to get their children vaccinated.

While Israeli airstrikes continued in other parts of Gaza, Israel agreed to pauses in the fighting in specific areas to allow the vaccination drive to proceed, and “until now they work,” Dr. Peeperkorn said.

Health teams will next take the effort to southern Gaza, where the W.H.O. estimates that it needs to reach 340,000 children before going to the north to inoculate some 150,000 more.

The W.H.O. and its partner agencies in Gaza say they need to reach 90 percent of children under 10 to avert the spread of polio. Gazans are experiencing an explosion of infectious diseases in the overcrowded and unsanitary conditions created by the war and the destruction of Gaza’s health care infrastructure.