STORY: The United Nations, in collaboration with Palestinian health authorities, completed a second day of a campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip on Monday (September 2), with Israel and Hamas agreeing to brief pauses in their 11-month war to allow the campaign to go ahead.
“There were 87,000 vaccinated on the first day out of 156,000 that we are hoping to reach in the middle area,” said Louise Wateridge, Senior Communications Officer for UNWRA, the largest UN agency in the Gaza Strip.
More than 1.2 million vaccine doses have been delivered to Gaza, with an additional 400,000 doses expected soon, according to the UN.
UN agencies UNRWA, the UN World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Palestinian health authorities aim to achieve at least 90 percent vaccination coverage in each round of the campaign to curb the current outbreak and prevent the international spread of polio.
But whilst the brief pauses in fighting do bring some relief after weeks of continuous Israeli strikes and fighting between the army and Hamas, Wateridge said the conflict in other parts of the enclave continued to rage.
The WHO said the pauses will likely need to extend to a fourth day and the first round of vaccinations will take just under two weeks.
