UPDATES WITH REMARKS FROM WHO
By Mohamed Majed and Beyza Binnur Donmez
GAZA CITY, Palestine / GENEVA (AA) – Palestinian Health Minister Majed Abu Ramadan announced Friday that a polio vaccination campaign for children under the age of 10 will begin in Gaza on Sunday.
According to a statement issued by Ramadan, the campaign will begin on September 1 in the Deir al-Balah district of central Gaza and will continue until September 4.
It will then move to Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip from September 5 to 9, before concluding in Gaza City and the northern part of the strip from September 9 to 12.
The minister emphasized that vaccination equipment will be transported between areas as per schedule, and assured that the vaccines are completely safe. He urged Gaza residents to vaccinate their children and ignore any misinformation spread by the Israeli occupation forces.
The ministry has released maps and sent text messages to inform Gaza residents about vaccination sites and schedules.
Rik Peeperkorn, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in the occupied Palestinian territories, told a UN briefing on Friday that the polio vaccination campaign will provide two drops of novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to more than 640,000 children under age 10.
Peeperkorn said 1.26 million doses of vaccines and 500 vaccine carriers have been delivered to Gaza, while 400,000 additional vaccine doses will arrive soon.
He noted that over 2,180 health workers and community outreach workers have been trained to provide vaccination and inform communities about the campaign.
"At least 90% vaccination coverage during each round of the campaign is needed to stop the outbreak and prevent the international spread of polio," he stressed.
He also welcomed the preliminary commitment to area-specific humanitarian pauses during the campaign and said: "We call on all parties to pause fighting to allow children and families to safely access health facilities and community outreach workers to get to children who cannot access health facilities for polio vaccination."
"Without humanitarian pauses, the campaign's delivery, which is already being implemented under highly constrained and very challenging circumstances, will not be possible," he said. "We reiterate our call for a cease-fire to enable the rebuilding of the health system and strengthening of routine immunization."
On Thursday, WHO announced an initial commitment to humanitarian cease-fires in specific areas during the polio vaccination campaign.
The agreement with the Israeli military’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) includes a three-day cease-fire in central Gaza, followed by similar cease-fires in the southern and northern regions.
On August 16, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres called for a seven-day humanitarian truce to carry out the vaccination campaign for 640,000 children, a call supported by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA). This call followed the Palestinian Health Ministry's report of Gaza's first confirmed polio case in a ten-month-old child.
Israel has continued its brutal offensive on the Gaza Strip following an attack by the Palestinian group Hamas last Oct. 7, despite a UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate cease-fire.
The onslaught has resulted in over 40,600 Palestinian deaths, mostly women and children, and over 93,800 injuries, according to local health authorities.
An ongoing blockade of Gaza has led to severe shortages of food, clean water and medicine, leaving much of the region in ruins.
Israel faces accusations of genocide at the International Court of Justice, which has ordered a halt to military operations in the southern city of Rafah, where over one million Palestinians had sought refuge before the area was invaded on May 6.
* Writing by Ikram Kouachi