The second and final round of polio vaccination in Gaza will begin this Monday with the objective of reaching 591,000 children under ten years of age and preventing the feared spread of this disease in the midst of deplorable sanitary conditions and a health system that barely continues to function.
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In recent hours, the UN has asked Israel not to issue new evacuation orders to the Gazan population to help everyone children can participate in this vaccination campaignwhich is scheduled to conclude at the end of the month.
“This is very important because the new evacuation orders in northern Gaza are threatening andl access to hospitals and protection of facilities and health workers,” said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Palestine, Rik Peeperkorn.
The local representative of UNICEF, the United Nations agency for the protection of children, Jean Gough, has warned of the challenge that these “endless population movements” for the vaccination of minors.
The WHO has indicated that the campaign – launched after the first polio case after more than twenty years– It will be considered successful if it achieves coverage of 90% of the children it targets.
UNICEF plans to deploy some 800 social mobilizers during the campaign who will inform families about the importance of their children receiving this second dose, as well as the dates and the places they can go to for this.
During the year of the war in Gaza, 75% of the equipment used in the cold chain has been destroyed, so UNICEF has supplied new refrigerators, freezers, refrigerators and vaccine holders, that is, all the equipment necessary to maintain the vaccines. at a temperature between 2 and 8°C.
The UN has also insisted on respect for the schedules established for “humanitarian pauses”, that is, the part of the day during which both parties to the conflict must refrain from any military action, which was observed during the first phase of vaccination. in September.
Only in this way can a “safe environment” in which health workers can go out to work and parents can take their children without fear, Gough said.
Children in Gaza will be given vitamin A with the polio vaccine to strengthen their immune systems and protect them against the extremely precarious hygienic and sanitary conditions in which they survive.
EFE
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