More than 560,000 children have received the first dose of polio vaccination in the war-torn Gaza Strip, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said today and praised the success of the first phase of vaccination. The next one is supposed to happen in about four weeks, informs the DPA agency.
“This is a huge success in the midst of the tragic daily reality of life throughout the Gaza Strip,” the WHO chief said on Network X. He added that the first phase of vaccination had been completed on Thursday.
The vaccination campaign was announced by the WHO on August 29 after the first confirmed case of polio in 25 years. Mass vaccination aimed at at least 90 percent of children under the age of ten began on September 1. According to the organization, the Israeli army and Hamas have agreed on three spatially and temporally limited pauses in fighting. Each child should receive a second dose after four weeks.
In the first phase, children were first vaccinated in the central part of Gaza, then in the south and finally in the most inaccessible north of the war-torn territory. The Gaza Strip has been the target of an Israeli offensive for 11 months. The war in Gaza began last October 7 with an attack on Israel by the terrorist Palestinian movement Hamas, which in retaliation launched a massive bombardment of the Gaza Strip and then a ground operation.
Polio (poliomyelitis) is a highly contagious viral infectious disease affecting the nervous system. In most of the world, it was managed to be eradicated precisely by vaccination. In recent years, however, it has reappeared in Afghanistan, Pakistan and some African countries, for example in the most populous of them, Nigeria.
Source: www.tyden.cz
