“It sheds some light in the midst of conflict”

Calls for humanitarian pauses to be maintained in order to successfully complete the campaign after managing to inoculate almost 190,000 children in three days

UNRWA says it is “crucial” to vaccinate 90 percent of children and insists on achieving a definitive ceasefire

September 4 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called on Wednesday for maintaining the humanitarian pauses reached between Israel and the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the Gaza Strip in order to successfully complete the polio vaccination campaign, which after its first phase “sheds some light in the midst of the disastrous conflict” that the area is going through.

The UN agency stressed that the progress made this week, which has seen nearly 190,000 Gazans under the age of ten vaccinated in just three days, could not have been achieved without specific pauses to ensure that both health workers and children participate in the vaccination campaign “without risking their lives.”

“These pauses have been respected since the first phase, giving families and workers the confidence they need to continue this work,” said UNICEF Regional Director for the Near East and North Africa, Adele Khodr, in a statement.

The document also stressed that this atmosphere must be maintained. “Without a pause to carry out the two remaining phases of the vaccination campaign, we will fail to protect the children of Gaza and will put other children in the region at risk. We must achieve at least 90 percent vaccination coverage to stop the spread of the virus,” the document states.

“Preparing this ambitious campaign and achieving these pauses has not been easy, but it shows that it is possible to allow supplies into the Strip, silence attacks and protect civilians. All that is needed is will,” he said, before stating that children face “the sharpest edge of the war.”

Khodr, who has lamented that this campaign is one of the most dangerous and difficult in the world, has clarified that the last few days shed “a little light in the midst of the disastrous conflict”, but has warned that the “continuous destruction of vital infrastructure” continues to increase the risk of outbreaks of deadly diseases throughout the Gaza Strip and has recalled that before the start of the Israeli offensive against the Palestinian enclave, child immunization coverage was “very high, over 99 percent”.

“After almost a year in which families have suffered horrors that no man, woman, boy or girl should ever have to endure, this week we have seen what can be achieved, simply by sheer willpower,” he praised, before regretting that for a quarter of a century not a single case of polio had been recorded in Gaza.

This situation, he explained, has changed now that untreated sewage and rubble are piling up. “The risk of polio spreading within Gaza and even beyond, especially to neighbouring countries, remains high. We have started to address this this week,” he said, before recalling that the aim is to vaccinate 640,000 children.

SAFE AND EFFECTIVE VACCINES

UNICEF has stressed the importance of the fact that despite the “incessant attacks on schools and shelters for uprooted children”, families have made the effort to go in large numbers to vaccination sites. “They know that there is no time to lose in protecting their children,” it said.

“History and scientific evidence have shown us that the safest and most effective way to stop the spread and protect children from polio is vaccination. The vaccine is safe and effective, and has been used to protect children in more than 40 countries over the past three years,” the document states.

The Gaza Strip is already the most dangerous place in the world to be a child, and even with a pause for polio, the vaccination campaign faces serious dangers and obstacles, including damaged roads and health infrastructure, displaced populations, looting and disrupted supply routes.

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) has said that it is “crucial” to vaccinate 90 percent of Gazan children in order to achieve results and has insisted on achieving a definitive ceasefire in the area.

“Efforts continue to vaccinate as many children as possible. Temporary pauses must be respected, but above all we need an immediate ceasefire,” the agency said in a message posted on its social media account X.

She explained that several UNRWA teams have been helping with the vaccination campaign in Deir al-Bala, as well as in other areas of central Gaza. “They have been going from shop to shop vaccinating every child who has not been able to access health facilities,” she said.

“As our teams continue with the vaccination campaign, more vaccines are arriving at our health centres in the southern Gaza Strip. Our colleagues have launched a series of activities to raise awareness about the importance of getting vaccinated before the next phase of the campaign begins in the south,” he said.