Health aid workers have ensured that nearly 560,000 children under the age of 10 in Gaza received the first of two doses of the polio vaccine.
What's new: The World Health Organization announced on Friday it completed the first round of an emergency vaccination campaign conducted in three phases over 12 days in September in the Gaza Strip.
The campaign, which relied on 9-hour humanitarian pauses to ensure safety, provided novel oral polio vaccine type 2, or nOPV2, to 558,963 children at health facilities and outreach posts. Mobile and transit teams visited families in shelter homes, tents, and camps for the displaced.
What's next: WHO says a second round will follow, ideally within four weeks, to provide a second dose of nOPV2 to children in Gaza to stop the outbreak of polio and prevent its international spread.
For that to happen, WHO, UNICEF and the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, or UNRWA, say Israel and Hamas must agree to more humanitarian pauses and unimpeded access to children in areas that need special coordination.
WHO says vaccination coverage will be monitored, and, when necessary, vaccinations will be extended to meet coverage targets as part of flexible strategies to ensure every eligible child receives their vaccine dose.
"This is a massive success amidst a tragic daily reality of life across the Gaza Strip," says WHO's Director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. "Imagine what could be achieved with a ceasefire!"
What's important: At least 90% vaccination coverage in each round of the campaign is needed to stop the outbreak, prevent the international spread of polio and reduce the risk of its re-emergence, WHO says, given the severely disrupted health, water and sanitation systems that Israel destroyed or damaged in the Gaza Strip.
Due to wars and conflict, polio – which spreads through contamination of food and water and person-to-person contact – has reemerged in Gaza and other regions where the highly infectious disease caused by the poliovirus was all but eradicated decades ago.
It mostly affects children under the age of 5 and can cause irreversible paralysis and even death. The nOPV2 vaccine offers protection against paralysis and community transmission.
Who's involved: The campaign was conducted by the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza along with WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA and other partners, including the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, or GPEI.
It used 473 teams, including 230 mobile teams, and 143 vaccination sites, in central Gaza, along with 91 fixed sites – hospitals, medical points, primary health centers, temporary learning spaces, schools, and food and water distribution points – complemented by 384 mobile teams in southern Gaza.
The vaccination drive ended in northern Gaza, where it reached children using 127 teams at fixed sites and 104 mobile teams. WHO says it also hired some 749 "social mobilizers" to engage communities and "nudge families to vaccinate their children and address concerns."
What's happening now: The campaign's original target of vaccinating 640,000 children "may have been an overestimate," says WHO, "as the population continues to move from place to place, and people are fleeing and being killed due to the ongoing hostilities."
WHO's representative in Gaza, Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, says he's hopeful the humanitarian pauses will hold because "this campaign has clearly shown the world what’s possible when peace is given a chance."
