The second day of polio vaccination in Gaza

Almost 90 thousand children were immunized during the first day of the mass vaccination campaign launched by the WHO in the Gaza Strip.Hundreds of thousands remain, with only three short humanitarian pauses granted so far.

A small pen mark on the hand can determine salvation from polimyelitis for children in the Gaza Strip.This is how doctors distinguish children who have already received the first dose of the vaccine from those yet to reach it.They are about 87,000 children from the Gaza Strip who received the first dose of the polio vaccine a few hours after the start of an extremely complicated vaccination campaign, because it was conducted without having yet reached a ceasefire agreement.Mass vaccination officially began on Sunday invoked by the World Health Organization to stop the spread of the polio virus, after the health authorities of the Strip diagnosed the virus no later than two weeks ago first case of polio in Gaza in 25 years to a 10 month old baby.The operations will take place during ad hoc humanitarian pauses resulting from an agreement reached between the WHO and Israel, in which Hamas has communicated that it intends to cooperate.The WHO itself has communicated that 90 for children under 10 years old in Gaza will need to be vaccinated for the campaign to be considered effective.

The first vaccinations against polio in Deir Al-Balah

The campaign which officially began on Sunday aims to vaccinate 640.ooo children present in the Strip, the majority of whom live exposed to the risk of contracting the disease by coming into contact with unsafe water sources. The now eleven months of war have reduced the water infrastructure to collapse, available to the population, making water a vehicle for the spread of the poliovirus, which affects the nervous system and can cause partial or even total paralysis, especially in children.Palestinian officials reported that many children, escorted by their families, headed to a facility run by the United Nations Office for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in the city of Deir Al-Balah, where an estimated one million people live. .Here health workers administered the vaccine orally.

The bumpy path to mass immunization

Polio immunization operations in Gaza have begun in the central areas of the Strip, before moving south and elsewhere in the coming days.Based on the terms of the agreement between the WHO and Israel, the army will have to guarantee one stop fighting for at least eight hours and for three consecutive days.The WHO said humanitarian pauses will likely need to be extended to a fourth day and that the first round of vaccinations will last just under two weeks.But the temporary balance that should allow immunization operations will still be affected by the context of war and destruction in Gaza.The bad or blocked roads in fact, they could slow down the movements necessary to reach the vaccination points.

Furthermore, regarding the outcome of the campaign it is necessary to consider the clashes that still continue in various areas of the Gaza Strip.Al Jazeera reported stories from some Palestinians about shelling still ongoing in Rsfah, near the border with Egypt, while tanks continued to operate in the suburb of Zeitoun, in northern Gaza City.