UN Initiates Polio Vaccination Campaign in Gaza Amid Ongoing Conflict
In a bold move to protect the health of children in Gaza, UN agencies and local health officials have launched a major campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children against polio. The effort is complicated by the ongoing conflict between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters, requiring carefully coordinated pauses in fighting to allow the vaccinations to proceed. The first of these windows is set to open on Sunday.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), at least 90% of children under the age of 10 must be immunized swiftly to curb the spread of the virus. The campaign was triggered by the discovery of the first confirmed case of polio in Gaza in 25 years, raising concerns that more children may be infected. A UN expert has warned that if the virus is not contained, there could be a wider regional outbreak.
A Mother’s Anguish
Niveen, a mother living in a crowded tent camp in central Gaza, shares her distress over her one-year-old son Abdulrahman’s recent polio diagnosis. Previously a healthy baby who was crawling ahead of schedule, Abdulrahman is now partly paralyzed in one leg due to the virus. “I was shocked,” Niveen tells the BBC. “I never expected this to happen. Now, he may never crawl or walk again.”
Abdulrahman missed his routine vaccinations scheduled for October 7th, the same day a Hamas-led attack on southern Israel resulted in 1,200 casualties. Since then, the Abu Judyan family has been forced to move multiple times across Gaza, seeking safety amid the chaos. Like many others, they have faced disruptions to healthcare services, leaving children vulnerable to infections like polio.
Niveen feels a deep sense of guilt for not being able to get her son vaccinated. “I couldn’t do it because of our circumstances,” she says, holding Abdulrahman in a car seat. She hopes he can receive treatment outside Gaza. “He deserves a chance to live and walk like other children,” she adds. The family also struggles to find clean drinking water, and raw sewage flows near their makeshift tent, creating ideal conditions for the spread of diseases.
Emergency Response to the Outbreak
Since detecting the virus in wastewater samples in June, UN agencies have been urgently preparing for a mass vaccination campaign. Recently, UNICEF brought in 1.3 million doses of the vaccine through the Kerem Shalom checkpoint, carefully storing them in cold conditions to ensure their effectiveness. An additional 400,000 doses are expected soon.
The WHO announced on Thursday that it had secured an agreement with Israel for temporary pauses in the fighting to allow the vaccination program to take place. These “humanitarian pauses” will start in central Gaza and then expand to the north and south. Each pause is scheduled to last from 6:00 AM to 3:00 PM local time over three days, with an option for an extra day if needed.
Jonathan Crickx from UNICEF emphasizes the importance of these truces holding firm. “You cannot conduct a polio vaccination campaign in an active war zone. Families need to feel safe to bring their children for vaccines, and healthcare workers must be able to reach communities safely,” he explains. “This is a massive operation, especially in Gaza where access is limited and security incidents are frequent.”
Over 2,000 workers, primarily locals, are involved in the immunization drive. Palestinian health officials have set up more than 400 fixed vaccination sites, including healthcare centers, hospitals, and field hospitals, along with about 230 outreach sites in community gathering places. Each child needs two doses of the oral polio vaccine, four weeks apart, to effectively halt the virus’s transmission.
The Risk of a Wider Outbreak
The polio strain causing this outbreak is a mutated form of the virus derived from an oral polio vaccine. In rare cases, the weakened virus in the vaccine can be shed by those vaccinated and evolve into a form that can cause new infections. Doctors in Gaza are on high alert, and testing for potential polio cases is being conducted at a WHO-approved lab in Jordan.
Dr. Hamid Jafari, WHO director of polio eradication for the eastern Mediterranean, warns that there could be more cases of paralytic polio if the outbreak is not contained. “The risk isn’t just limited to Gaza. Given the high transmission rate, there’s a chance it could spread to Israel, the West Bank, and neighboring countries,” he says from Amman.
The immediate focus remains on Gaza, where children make up nearly half of the 2.3 million residents. With so many families already enduring loss and hardship, there is a glimmer of hope that this vaccination drive can prevent further suffering.
