Polio Vaccination Campaign in Gaza Amid Humanitarian Crisis – UN Geneva Press Briefing by WHO – 03 September 2024

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Polio vaccination in Gaza

Dr. Richard Peeperkorn, World Health Organization (WHO) representative for the occupied Palestinian territories, speaking from Gaza, informed that the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip had commenced on 1 September, with the objective of vaccinating the total of 640,000 children under ten years of age. A minimum of 90 percent of those children needed to be reached in order to stop the spread of polio in Gaza and prevent its international expansion. In the first two days of the campaign, in the central zone, over 161,000 children had been reached, surpassing the WHO’s own target. Day 3 of the campaign was currently underway to ensure that any children missed in the central zone would be reached. Dr. Peeperkorn said that over 2,200 health and community workers were engaged on this campaign, working in both fixed and mobile vaccination teams. He had visited a number of vaccination spots, to which parents had readily brought their children, and the overall atmosphere was rather positive. Gaza had historically had very high immunization rates, reminded Dr. Peeperkorn. It was estimated that one more day would be needed to complete the campaign in the central zone, after which the effort would move to the southern zone for three to four days, and eventually to the north. WHO welcomed area-specific humanitarian pauses, and it was critical that the parties continue to respect them.

Dr. Peeperkorn then reminded of the dire conditions of the overall health system in Gaza, inadequate water and sanitation, which had led to hundreds of thousands of cases of various diseases, including Hepatitis A and diarrhea. WHO was continuing with its other work, trying to get its missions to the north, but only four out of the eight planned missions in recent days had made it. An emergency medical team had been deployed to Indonesian Hospital on 2 September, and a new emergency department with 70 beds had been inaugurated at the Al-Shifa hospital. WHO had supported this new department with medical supplies, 20 ICU beds and mattresses, medical disposables, dressing kits and medications, and five hemodialysis machines.

Alessandra Vellucci, for the United Nations Information Service (UNIS), reminded of the statement by Tom Wennesland, the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, distributed the previous day.

Replying to numerous questions from the journalists, Dr. Peeperkorn, for the WHO, explained that children in Gaza used to be very well vaccinated until a year ago, but with a confirmed case of vaccine-derived polio virus type 2 in an eleven-month unvaccinated boy, further surveillance and eventually vaccination drive had been put into place. Given the enormous amount of population movements in Gaza, estimates of the numbers of children in each of the three vaccination zones were just that – estimates. Dr. Peeperkorn explained that under normal circumstances, polio vaccination was done house-to-house, which was impossible to do in Gaza now. The area-specific humanitarian pauses had worked until now, said Dr. Peeperkorn, expressing hope that this would continue to be the case. The campaign was made possible thanks to negotiations; it was not happening under ideal circumstances, but the negotiated conditions were workable.

Dr. Peeperkorn reminded that polio was a very easily preventable disease, and stopping its spread both in Gaza and internationally was an objective that could unite various parties. WHO considered there to be a high risk of variant poliovirus type 2 both within Gaza and internationally, given gaps in children’s immunity due to disruptions in routine vaccination, a new birth cohort, decimation of the health system, constant population displacement, malnutrition and severely damaged water and sanitation systems. He explained that oral polio vaccines were the primary tools to stop circulation of poliovirus because they had a unique ability to confer gut immunity needed to interrupt person-to-person spread of the virus. Dr. Peeperkorn hoped that if the current campaign was proven possible and successful, it would have effect on future humanitarian activities in Gaza. Each reported case of paralysis had to be checked to establish whether it was caused by polio. He emphasized that the current vaccination campaign was a partnership of several UN Agencies, the Ministry of Health, and several NGOs.

James Elder, for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), added that previous warnings of infectious disease breakouts had been ignored. Talks of a ceasefire were still just talks, unfortunately.

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