The United Nations, in collaboration with Palestinian health authorities, has officially launched a campaign to vaccinate children in the Gaza Strip against the poliovirus, which can cause paralysis of limbs and even death in children.
The discovery comes after the virus, which had already been defeated in the enclave thanks to a mass vaccination campaign, was discovered last month after 25 years of existence. The detection of the polio case highlights the collapse of Gaza’s health infrastructure due to nearly 11 months of relentless Israeli bombardment.
Here’s what we know about the status of the deployment amid the devastating war in Gaza that has killed more than 40,700 Palestinians, including nearly 17,500 children.
What is polio and how does it present in Gaza?
Polio is a serious infection that can spread quickly, especially in poor hygiene conditions, as it can be transmitted through contact with faeces. It can also be transmitted through coughing and sneezing, although this is less common.
Most people who are infected have no symptoms after contracting the virus. Some have mild, flu-like symptoms such as high fever, fatigue and headaches that usually last up to 10 days. But the virus can also affect the brain and nerves, leading to paralysis and, in some cases, death.
The Israeli army has destroyed water and sewage systems across the Palestinian territory, with waste piling up near tiny areas where hundreds of thousands of civilians are forcibly displaced.
According to the Government Media Office in Gaza, the Israeli army has also stopped transferring waste out of civilian areas by imposing control over dumpsites and targeting municipal workers, machines and mechanisms in place to manage waste.
Abdel-Rahman Abu el-Jedian, a 10-month-old Palestinian baby, became partially paralyzed last month after contracting polio, which he was unable to receive because his family had been repeatedly displaced by Israeli military operations.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the interruption of routine vaccination campaigns in the occupied Palestinian territory, including Gaza, has contributed to its re-emergence.
How will the vaccination campaign take place?
Around 2,700 health workers are taking part in the campaign, which is supported by WHO, UNICEF and the UN refugee agency (UNRWA), in collaboration with the Gaza Ministry of Health.
The mobilization officially began on Sunday in the central part of the enclave, where it will last until September 4, before moving to Khan Younis and Rafah in the south (from September 5 to 8) and the northern governorates of Gaza (from September 9 to 12).
Children in #Gaza I started receiving the polio vaccine this morning. It’s today in Nuseirat.
The vaccination campaign has started in the central area of Gaza, where more than 200 of our teams are administering vaccines in 28 @UNRWA health facilities and tent-to-tent travel#UNRWAworks pic.twitter.com/xkZtVxDOCJ
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) September 1, 2024
A handful of children received the first doses at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Saturday before the large-scale rollout began.
Some 640,000 children aged one day to 10 years will receive the type 2 polio vaccine, administered as two oral drops.
Is there a lull in the vaccination campaign?
Fighting has been halted in a few designated areas of the Gaza Strip to allow health centers to administer the doses.
But all reports of a general ceasefire in the enclave are false, according to the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Israel will only allow a humanitarian corridor through which vaccinators will pass and demarcated areas will be established that will be safe to administer the vaccine for a few hours,” he said in a statement Sunday.
“Israel considers it important to prevent the outbreak of polio in the Gaza Strip, particularly in order to prevent the spread of epidemics in the region.”
According to the UN, the initial duration of the agreed “humanitarian pause” to allow for vaccination is from 6:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. (09:00-18:00 GMT) every day.
Senior UN officials earlier stressed that the only effective way to vaccinate all children against the virus and a variety of other virulent diseases spreading in Gaza is to achieve an immediate and lasting ceasefire.
Are vaccines safe?
According to the UN, news articles have appeared online in Israel and the United States, citing Israeli scientists falsely claiming that the polio vaccine planned for use in Gaza is “experimental” and poses a danger to citizens of Palestine and Israel.
“I want to make one thing clear: the safest and most effective way to protect children from poliovirus, regardless of the variant, is to vaccinate them,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters in New York last week.
“This vaccine is safe, effective and provides high-quality protection. It is a vaccine recommended globally by the World Health Organization for outbreaks of variant poliovirus type 2.”
Dujarric said more than 1.2 billion doses of the same vaccine have been used to protect children in about 40 countries since its launch in March 2021.
What are the obstacles? Will this campaign prevent a polio epidemic?
Chessa Latifi, deputy director of emergency preparedness and response at Project HOPE, said war, forced displacement and the collapse of the health system in Gaza could hamper the vaccination campaign.
“I think it is very unlikely that the vaccination campaign will reach the 90% of children who need to be vaccinated,” Latifi told Tel Aviv Tribune from Los Angeles.
“There is no guarantee of safety. These people who have to bring their children to these clinics – first of all, do they have access to these clinics? Do they have fuel or the means to get to the clinics? Is it safe? Can the staff get to the clinics safely? I know we have these brief humanitarian pauses. But is that enough? No,” she said.
Latifi, whose organization operates in Gaza, also said the vaccination campaign alone would not help prevent the spread of the virus.
“The vaccination campaign is not addressing the main problem, which is the lack of hygiene, sanitation and clean water,” she said. “If we had these things – clean water, sanitation and proper latrines – we would not have polio. But these facilities have been completely destroyed. People are living in makeshift camps. It is a very dangerous situation.”