UN's Gaza polio vaccinations will rely on pauses in fighting
World
UN's Gaza polio vaccinations will rely on pauses in fighting
GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations officials are preparing to launch a polio vaccination campaign in Gaza on Sunday that will rely on a series of limited pauses in fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants holding out in the besieged enclave.
The World Health Organization says it will need to vaccinate at least 90% of the children in Gaza for the campaign to succeed but it faces huge challenges in the Palestinian enclave, which has been largely destroyed by nearly 11 months of war.
The campaign has been organised after the WHO said on Aug 23 that a baby had been paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years, and U.N. agencies appealed for an urgent vaccination effort.
Some 1.2 million vaccine doses have already been delivered to Gaza ahead of the campaign, which aims to vaccinate more than 640,000 children, a WHO official said on Friday. An additional 400,000 doses are en route to the territory, said Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO's representative for the occupied Palestinian territories.
The planned pauses are unconnected with negotiations that have been underway for months to try to agree a halt in the fighting in Gaza and a return of Israeli and foreign hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
COGAT, the Israeli agency that coordinates administration in the occupied Palestinian territories, said the pauses would be coordinated as part of a series of humanitarian pauses implemented periodically since the start of the Israeli campaign in Gaza last October.
