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- Sept. 12, 2024Updated 9:26 a.m. ET
The first phase of a large-scale polio vaccination campaign in Gaza is set to conclude on Thursday, with organizers hopeful of soon fulfilling their goal of inoculating 640,000 children under 10.
Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the U.N. agency that aids Palestinians in Gaza, said that aside from an episode on Monday, when Israeli troops detained a U.N. convoy of aid and medical workers heading to northern Gaza to conduct inoculations, the campaign had been going well in challenging wartime conditions. There were no “red flags” or incidents on Wednesday, she said, enabling the final stage to proceed as planned on Thursday.
Nearly 530,000 children in Gaza had received the first of two doses of the vaccine by Wednesday, UNRWA said on social media. For the effort to be considered a success, health workers must also be able to administer a booster round of vaccinations in a few weeks.
The newly vaccinated group made up more than 80 percent of those whom authorities were hoping to inoculate, health authorities in Gaza said in a statement. Health experts say that 90 percent of children under 10 must receive both doses of the vaccine to avert the spread of polio, which is highly contagious and can cause paralysis and death in the unvaccinated.
Traces of poliovirus were found in wastewater in Gaza this summer. In August, a nearly 1-year-old boy was confirmed to be the first polio case in the enclave in 25 years.
Polio can thrive in unsanitary conditions and in places where vaccination rates are not high enough. Health officials have said that vaccination rates in Gaza, at about 99 percent as recently as 2022, have dropped significantly among babies because of the war. Much of Gaza’s infrastructure and waste management systems have been destroyed over the past 11 months, since Israel launched a retaliatory offensive in response to the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7, compounding the risk for unvaccinated children.
