The World Health Organization confirmed on Thursday that it is “confident” that the massive polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip has achieved its goal of reaching more than 90 percent of children under the age of ten.
Disease has spread across the Strip, where most of its 2.4 million residents have been forced to flee their homes and take refuge in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions.
After the first confirmed case of polio in 25 years in the Gaza Strip, a massive vaccination campaign began last week targeting at least 90 percent of children under the age of 10, during which local “humanitarian truces” were imposed.
“We are confident that we have probably achieved the target,” Rick Peeperkorn, the WHO representative in the Palestinian territories, told reporters.
The organization initially said it aimed to vaccinate about 640,000 children, but Peeperkorn said the figure was likely an overestimate of the target population.
He said that by Wednesday, 552,451 children had been vaccinated with the first dose of the vaccine, adding that the World Health Organization was still awaiting figures for the last day of the campaign on Thursday.
He said the WHO was “satisfied” with the campaign, praising the large numbers of parents who came out to ensure their children were protected from polio.
Polio, which is usually spread through contaminated sewage and water, is highly contagious. It can cause deformities, paralysis and death. It mainly affects children under the age of five.
A new vaccination campaign with a second dose is scheduled to begin in about four weeks in Gaza.
The World Health Organization stressed that at least 90 percent of the population must be reached to avoid the spread of the disease within and outside Gaza’s borders.
Peeperkorn said WHO was “deeply grateful that the humanitarian pauses were respected in the designated areas” during the first phase of the campaign.
He called for expanding the truce to include a “much wider area” that would allow for the establishment of appropriate humanitarian corridors to ensure that aid reaches those in need.
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