Israel has agreed to a series of “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza to allow children to be vaccinated against polio, the World Health Organization (WHO) has announced.
According to them, there should be three breaks of one day each, at intervals, and the campaign will aim to vaccinate about 640,000 children across the Gaza Strip and will begin on Sunday, said senior WHO official Rik Peeperkorn.
The break will be carried out in three phases – across the central, southern and northern part of the lane. During each stage, fighting will be paused for three consecutive days between 06:00 and 15:00 local time.
The agreement comes days after UN officials said a 10-month-old baby was partially paralyzed after Gaza’s first case of polio in 25 years.
The World Health Organization aims to achieve 90 percent vaccine coverage across the Strip, which is needed to stop transmission of the virus inside Gaza.
About 1.26 million doses of the new oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) are already in Gaza, and 400,000 additional doses will arrive soon. The campaign will be managed by the “Palestinian Ministry of Health, in cooperation with WHO, UNICEF, UNRWA”. Over 2,000 community health and outreach workers have been trained to administer the vaccine.
