Almost 100,000 children vaccinated against polio in Gaza

Currently, the UN and its partners are focused on vaccinating 150,000 children in central Gaza by Tuesday before moving on to the northern and southern regions.

Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces have agreed to respect eight-hour pauses in fighting between 6am to 3pm during the three-day vaccination phases. 

Children are being given the oral polio vaccine (OPV), which is easier and cheaper to administer than a jab and more effective in stopping transmission of the virus. 

While the ceasefires have been mostly respected, there has been some military activity in areas designated for vaccination efforts, according to officials on the ground.

“Humanitarian pauses are being respected overall, but this morning around 7am, there was heavy gunfire in the Nuseirat area, where fighting was supposed to be halted,” said Louise Wateridge, Senior Communications Officer for UNRWA, who has been accompanying vaccinators in Gaza.

“Yesterday, there was shooting around 6.30am that sounded like tank gunfire,” she told The Telegraph. “But as the days have gone on, it’s remained calm and quiet. Before the vaccination program began, the bombs and gunfire were relentless.”

There has been a “fantastic turnout” with “very long lines” at health facilities offering the vaccine, Ms Wateridge said. On Sunday, vaccinators reached 87,000 children.

Dr Hareen De Silva, a GP who is managing a primary health facility in Deir el Balah run by British charity UK-Med said the vaccine drive was going well and that his clinic had managed to reach 1,500 children in the space of two days. 

“We haven’t had any resistance and our team has been going into the community to explain to families why their children need the vaccine, and our clinic has been very busy,” Dr De Silva told The Telegraph. 

“We’re using permanent markers to draw a line on the left hand of children who have been vaccinated. Then we go tent to tent, shelter to shelter, to find the children we haven’t reached yet,” said Ms Wateridge.

Ms Wateridge added health officials have not encountered resistance from children or families offered the polio vaccine, but said some had been put off by long lines at medical facilities.

“I visited a school in Deir al-Balah housing 15,000 people. In that shelter, 1,300 children were vaccinated yesterday, almost the total number of children under 10 there.

“Today, we returned, going classroom to classroom to encourage the remaining children to get vaccinated. No one refused the vaccine, but some said the long lines the previous day had been a deterrent” she said.

“We are trying to reach that 90 per cent vaccination coverage, but there are a huge number of challenges,” Ms Wateridge stressed. 

“We don’t have estimates of how many children need the vaccine – we don’t know how many children have been killed, there are children separated and alone from families, it’s very difficult circumstances to operate in.” 

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