Geneva, October 12 (EFE).- The second and last round of vaccinations against polio will begin in Gaza this Monday with the aim of reaching 591,000 children under ten years of age and preventing on the alarming spread of this disease among the sanitary conditions of a health care system that barely continues to function.
In the last few hours, the UN has asked Israel not to issue new evacuation orders to the Gazan population to help all children participate in this vaccination campaign, which is expected to end at the end of the month.
“This is very important because the new evacuation orders in northern Gaza threaten access to hospitals and the protection of health facilities and workers,” said the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) for Palestine, Rik Peeperkorn .
The local representative of UNICEF, the United Nations child protection agency, Jean Gough, has warned of the challenge that these “endless population movements” mean for the vaccination of young people.
The WHO has declared that the campaign – which was launched after the first case of polio in more than twenty years was found in Gaza last August – will be considered a success if it achieves coverage of 90% of the children it targets.
UNICEF plans to deploy around 800 social workers during the campaign who will inform families about the importance of their children receiving this second dose, as well as the dates and the places they can go to do that.
During the year of war in Gaza, 75% of the equipment used in the cold chain was destroyed, so UNICEF has provided refrigerators, freezers, refrigerators and vaccine holders, and that is, all the equipment necessary to keep the vaccines at a temperature between 2 and 8 °C.
The UN has also called for respect for the schedules established for “humanitarian pauses”, that is, the part of the day in which both parties to the conflict must refrain from any military action, which has been observed in the first phase of the vaccine September.
Only in this way can a “safe environment” be created in which health workers can go to work and parents can bring their children without fear, said Gough.
With the polio vaccine, vitamin A will be given to the children of Gaza, to strengthen their immune system and protect them from the very fragile hygiene and sanitation conditions in which they live.EFE
2024-10-12 09:19:00
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