About 1.2 million doses of polio vaccine have already been delivered to the Gaza Strip ahead of the start of the campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children on Sunday, September 1, a World Health Organization official said today.
About 400,000 additional doses are on their way to the region, said Roque Peppercorn, WHO representative in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In doing so, approximately 640,000 children will be vaccinated in Gaza, where the World Health Organization confirmed on August 23 that at least one child was paralyzed by the polio virus type 2, the first case in the region in 25 years. This is Abdul Rahman Abu al Jidian. It will be one year on September 1.
Parents fear for their children’s lives
His mother, Nivin Abu al-Jidian, said she feared for her son after doctors told her there was little they could do to help him.
“I am surprised that my son got this disease in the middle of the war and with closed borders, under these conditions, it is surprising. Will it stay like this?’ Abu al-Jidian told Reuters today.
“He’s my only child. He has the right to receive medical care – he has the right to walk, run and move like before… it is unfair that he is left in the tent without care or attention,” he said from a tent in Deir al -Balah in the middle of the Gaza Strip.
At Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Yunis, Umm Elian Bakr fears her 19-month-old daughter is vulnerable to polio because of her poor health due to malnutrition.
She hopes that her child will receive the vaccine soon, but she said that she is worried because she cannot move safely to a place where there have been several Israeli strikes.
“I can’t walk down the street and have a bomb or something happen to my daughter or have a targeted attack. I need rest, rest-rest so I can give this vaccine to my daughter,” he told Reuters.
Source: RES
