A Hamas health ministry official said polio vaccinations began in Gaza on Saturday, with a humanitarian worker saying the campaign would be scaled up from Sunday, the date the UN announced for a "humanitarian pause."
"Teams from the Ministry of Health, UNRWA and NGOs began the polio vaccination campaign on Saturday," said Dr. Moussa Abed, director of primary care in the Hamas government's Ministry of Health.
A first case of polio was recently confirmed in a ten-month-old child in the Gaza Strip, a Palestinian territory besieged and devastated by nearly 11 months of war, where this disease had been eradicated twenty-five years ago.
The UN has sent 1.2 million doses of the nOPV2 vaccine (which consists of the oral administration of two drops). The second dose of the vaccine should be administered four weeks after the first.
Parents told AFP that they came to have their children vaccinated, in particular because they feared epidemics in the small territory of 2.4 million inhabitants, almost all of whom have been displaced since the start of the war.
– “Very scared” –
Aid Abou Taha, 33, brought his eleven-month-old son to Nasser hospital in Khan Younes (south): "I came because I am very afraid for him."
"This polio vaccination campaign is very important especially because there are more and more displaced people who are crowding together and there are epidemics spreading among children," he added.
"My three-year-old daughter was vaccinated today to be protected," said Amal Chahine, 40, explaining that her daughter was hospitalized with pneumonia and the vaccine was administered to her "like all the children who were at Nasser hospital."
Bakr Dib, 35, came to have his children aged three, five and eight vaccinated.
"At first, I hesitated, I was very afraid that this vaccine was not safe, but when I saw that everyone was going to the vaccination center, I was reassured and I came too," he explained.
"Since the beginning of hostilities, my children have caught several diseases because we could not ensure good hygiene with the war."
On Thursday, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Israel had agreed to a series of "humanitarian pauses" of three days each in the center, then the south and north of the Gaza Strip to allow the start of vaccinations of 640,000 children against polio on Sunday.
Due in part to damaged roads and displaced populations, the UN had indicated that it might need an extra day for each area, and the agreement provides for the humanitarian pause - expected each day between early morning and early afternoon - to be extended.
According to the UN, "coverage of at least 90% is needed in each phase of the campaign to stop the epidemic."
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