WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted that he had been “A huge success in the midst of a tragic everyday reality of life.“for more than two million Gazans who have been caught in the intense fighting since Hamas terror attacks last October sparked the war in Gaza.
In three phases over 12 days, from 1 to 12 September, UN agencies and partners provided the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to some 558,963 children, reaching families living in shelters, tents and camps for displaced people.
Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, welcomed the “Incredible resilience” of health and community workers by carrying out the campaign “on an unprecedented scale and speed and under the harshest conditions” in the war-ravaged enclave.
“The rapid action of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – from the moment the virus was detected to the launch of the vaccination campaign – speaks to the effectiveness of the polio programme,” he said.
Moments of calm
For each of the phases (central, southern and northern Gaza), a specific humanitarian pause of nine hours each day was agreed to ensure the safety of communities and health workers and allow for vaccination efforts.
“In areas where there were humanitarian pauses, the campaign brought not only vaccines, but moments of calm,” said Dr. Peeperkorn.
“As we prepare for the next round in four weeks, we are hopeful that these pauses will continue.“Because this campaign has clearly shown the world what is possible when peace is given a chance,” he added.
The second round will provide a second dose of nOPV2 to children in Gaza to stop the outbreak and prevent its international spread.
Although the programme faced challenges such as destroyed roads and health facilities, access problems, limited fuel, shortage of trained health workers and constant population movements, these were addressed in a timely manner with the support of the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
Unfinished business
Jean Gough, Representative of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Palestine, welcomed the progress made in the first round and stressed that “The work is far from over“.
“We are ready to finish the job and we call on all those involved to ensure that we can do so in the next round in four weeks, for the sake of children everywhere,” he said.
To reach enough children to successfully stop poliovirus transmission, WHO, UNICEF and UNRWA urged all parties to the conflict to commit to another round of humanitarian pauses, with unhindered access to children in areas requiring special coordination.
Original objective
The WHO noted that the original target of the campaign – 640,000 children – was Estimated without a precise study and may have been an overestimatedue to displacement and ongoing hostilities.
The agency added that 65 additional independent monitors are being deployed to verify the proportion of vaccinated children across the Gaza Strip to independently assess the level of coverage achieved in the first round.
They need safe and unhindered access to visit homes, markets, transit points and health facilities to check that children have the prominent purple tinge marked on their little finger when they are vaccinated, he added.
These efforts will provide an independent measure of how much vaccination coverage has been achieved and how many children have been left behind.
UNRWA staff member killed in West Bank
However, the ongoing conflict continues to claim civilian lives, displacing thousands of people and destroying civilian homes and infrastructure. The United Nations also lost more than 220 UNRWA staff members, killed during the Israeli offensive following the 7 October terror attacks by Hamas and other militants.
On Thursday, UNRWA lost another staff member, who was killed in the El Far'a camp in the northern West Bank, the first such killing in that region in more than a decade.
According to the agency, the staff member, a sanitation worker, was shot dead on the roof of his home by a sniper during an Israeli military operation at night in the early hours of the morning. He is survived by his wife and five children.
“This is the first time that an UNRWA staff member has been killed in the West Bank in more than ten years. This comes at a time when the West Bank is experiencing unprecedented levels of violence, putting communities at risk,” Roland Friedrich, UNRWA Director of West Bank Affairs, said in a statement.
She noted that the prolonged Israeli military operations, particularly affecting El Far'a, Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin camps, have forced UNRWA to suspend services to refugees “due to the unacceptable risk to staff and beneficiaries during such operations.”
Mr. Friedrich also expressed concern about the use of improvised explosive devices by Palestinian armed actors.
