ReutersUN agencies and local health officials in the Gaza Strip are launching a massive campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children against polio.
The release is contingent on a series of ceasefires in the area between Israeli forces and Hamas fighters, with the first window set to begin on Sunday.
To be effective, the World Health Organization (WHO) says that at least 90% of children under the age of 10 should be vaccinated within a short period of time.
Following the discovery of the first confirmed case of polio in 25 years in Gaza, a UN expert said more children are likely to be infected and that there could be a major regional outbreak if the virus is not dealt with.
A video shot a few months ago shows that baby Abdulrahman Abu Judyan was crawling early. But now that she’s a year old, her mother Niveen – who lives in an overcrowded camp in central Gaza – is worried she won’t be able to leave.
“It was very shocking,” Niveen told the BBC, recalling her son’s diagnosis of polio, which left him partially paralyzed in one leg. “I did not expect this. Now he may not be able to crawl and walk and the child is left without proper medical care.”
On October 7 – the day of a shocking attack led by Hamas in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people – newborn Abdulrahman was supposed to receive routine vaccinations but did not.
During the ensuing war, the Abu Judyan family from the far north of Gaza, has moved five times – first to Gaza City, then to different places in the middle, to Rafah in the far south and back to Deir al-Balah.
Almost 90% of all Gazans have been displaced and with health services under severe strain, many children have seen their routine immunizations disrupted leaving them vulnerable to infection, like Abdulrahman.
“I feel very guilty for not getting the vaccine. But I couldn’t give him because of our circumstances,” said Niveen rocking her baby in the car seat. He is very hopeful that his son can be taken outside of Gaza for treatment. He says: “He wants to live and travel like other children.
A mother is struggling to find clean drinking water for her nine children. Next to the makeshift tent where they live, green sewage flows on the road.
Conditions are ripe for the spread of disease – especially the highly contagious polio.
Since discovering the virus in contaminated water samples taken in June, UN agencies have been racing to set up an emergency mass vaccination program.
EPAAbout 1.3 million doses of the vaccine were recently delivered through the Kerem Shalom testing site by Unicef - the UN children’s agency. He has had to store them in cold storage at the right temperature to maintain their potency. Another shipment of 400,000 doses will be delivered to Gaza soon.
On Thursday, the WHO said it had reached an agreement with Israel to pause fighting to allow for a polio vaccination program, starting in central Gaza but extending south and north. Each “temporary break” will last from 06:00 until 15:00 local time over three days, with the possibility of adding an extra day if needed.
Jonathan Crickx of Unicef says it is important that these temporary agreements hold.
“You cannot lead and implement a polio vaccination campaign in an active combat zone. It is impossible,” he said.
“Families must feel safe when they bring their children to receive vaccinations. But again, health workers need to be able to safely reach communities. “
“This is a huge effort,” added Mr Crickx. “Especially in an area like the Gaza Strip where we know that, for example, the roads are damaged, that access is a problem, that security incidents happen every day.”
More than 2,000 workers – most of them local – participated in the vaccination effort. Palestinian health officials say there will be more than 400 fixed vaccination sites – including health centers, hospitals, clinics, and field hospitals – and about 230 places called access points, community gathering places, where vaccines will be distributed.
Each child should receive two drops of oral polio vaccine in two rounds, the second should be given four weeks after the first. It is important that this program is implemented quickly to prevent the mutation of the virus and to stop transmission.
The polio variant that caused this latest outbreak is a modified virus from the oral polio vaccine. This is because the vaccine contains a weakened live virus that in very rare cases is shed by those who receive it and mutates into a new form that can start a new epidemic.
As doctors in Gaza are very wary of possible polio infections in children, tests are carried out at a WHO-approved laboratory in Jordan.
“There could be more cases of polio until this outbreak is stopped and the virus will cripple many children,” Dr Hamid Jafari, WHO’s director of polio eradication in the eastern Mediterranean, told me in Amman.
He says things are up throughout the region. “Yes, the danger is not only in Gaza, given the large number of forces transferred from Gaza, there is a risk that this will spread to Israel, the West Bank and the surrounding countries.”
For now, though, the focus is still on Gaza – where children make up almost half of the 2.3 million people.
The past year has taken away many loved ones, their homes and their lives. Since war will never end, the hope is that at least one new source of suffering can be eliminated.
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