Health: Launching the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza at the end of August

The Ministry of Health announced today, Friday, that it is preparing to launch a vaccination campaign against polio in the Gaza Strip at the end of this August. She explained that she had completed the national vaccination plan, which included sorting out the necessary medical staff, identifying vaccination centre points, and completing the training process in partnership with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, the World Health Organisation, UNICEF and all local and international institutions. She stressed that through this campaign, she aims to vaccinate all children under the age of ten years, as the campaign will be implemented in two rounds with a four-week interval, in order to eliminate and eliminate the spread and circulation of the vaccine-derived polio virus in the Gaza Strip. The ministry confirmed that approximately (one million and six hundred thousand doses) will be used, targeting the vaccination of more than (six hundred and forty thousand children), as four hundred fixed and mobile vaccination centers have been created for this purpose. She reiterated her emphasis on working with all her energies and capabilities to make this campaign a success, and called on all international institutions to work and pressure the Israeli occupation authorities to stop the ongoing aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip immediately, so that medical teams can work on vaccinating children and limiting the spread of the polio virus, and reaching coverage rates exceeding 95% of the children targeted for vaccination. The Ministry also called on all citizens and residents in the Gaza Strip to cooperate with the medical teams and go to the mobile and fixed vaccination centers that will be announced to vaccinate children, to limit the spread of the virus and eliminate it. The Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, said that delaying the achievement of a humanitarian truce in the Gaza Strip, which is being subjected to a devastating Israeli aggression, "will increase the risk of the spread of polio." "It is very sad that the World Health Organization has confirmed that a 10-month-old baby in Gaza has been paralyzed by polio," Lazzarini tweeted. He explained that this case is "the first (in the sector) in more than 25 years." On August 16, the Ministry of Health announced the first confirmed case of polio in the Gaza Strip. She stated that the case was recorded in the city of Deir al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, "for a 10-month-old child who had not received any polio vaccination dose." He stressed that "bringing vaccines to Gaza is not enough, and for vaccines to have an effect, they must end up in the mouths of every child under the age of ten." Lazzarini explained that UNRWA medical teams will provide vaccines in its clinics and through its mobile health teams in the Strip. "Since the war began, 80 percent of children across Gaza have received vaccinations against various childhood disease s," he added. On Wednesday, 20 international aid organizations and health workers stressed the need to deliver polio vaccines to Gaza "as soon as possible." Source: Maan News Agency