The World Health Organization said it surpassed its polio vaccination targets in Gaza on Tuesday (3), the third day of a mass campaign, and inoculated about a quarter of children under 10.
The campaign, which was sustained after the discovery of the first case of polio in a Gaza baby last month, is based on daily eight-hour pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in targeted areas of the besieged enclave.
Rik Peeperkorn, the WHO representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, told reporters that it had vaccinated more than 161,000 children under the age of 10 in the central area in the first two days of its campaign, compared with a projection of about 150,000.
This equates to about a quarter of the total population targeted in the campaign to stop the spread of the disease, which can cause paralysis and even death in young children.
The health teams will head to southern Gaza later this week, where they aim to reach some 340,000 children, he said, followed by northern Gaza.
He said some children in southern Gaza were thought to be outside the agreed zone for the pauses and that negotiations would continue to reach them.
The WHO says at least 90% of Gaza’s children need to be vaccinated for the campaign to work and to prevent the spread of polio both within Gaza and across its borders.
This content was originally published in WHO exceeds partial polio vaccination target in Gaza Strip on CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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