WHO chief praises “huge success” of polio campaign despite tragic reality

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted that it was “a huge success in the midst of a tragic everyday reality“For more than two million Gaza residents who have been caught up in the fierce fighting since the war in Gaza broke out with Hamas terrorist attacks last October.

In three phases over 12 days, from 1 to 12 September, UN agencies and partners provided the new oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to around 558,963 children, reaching families living in emergency shelters, tents and camps for displaced people.

Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, praised the “Incredible resilience” of health and social workers in conducting the campaign in the war-torn enclave “on an unprecedented scale and with unprecedented speed under the harshest conditions”.

“The rapid action of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – from the time the virus was discovered to the launch of the vaccination campaign – speaks to the effectiveness of the polio programme,” he said.

Moments of peace

For each of the phases – Central, South and North Gaza – an area-specific humanitarian pause of nine hours a day has been agreed to ensure the safety of communities and health workers and to enable vaccination efforts.

“In the areas where humanitarian pauses took place, the campaign brought not only vaccines but also moments of calm,” said Dr. Peeperkorn.

“As we prepare for the next round in four weeks, we hope these breaks will continue.because this campaign has clearly shown the world what is possible when you give peace a chance,” he added.

The second round will involve administering a second dose of nOPV2 to children in the Gaza Strip to stop the outbreak and prevent its international spread.

While the programme faced challenges such as destroyed roads and health facilities, access problems, limited fuel, a lack of trained health personnel and constant population movements, these were addressed in a timely manner with the support of the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Unfinished business

Jean Gough, Representative of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Palestine, welcomed the progress made in the first round and stressed that the “The work is far from done“.

“We are ready to finish the job and call on all stakeholders to ensure we do so in the next round in four weeks, for the benefit of all children around the world,” she said.

To reach enough children and successfully stop further transmission of poliovirus, WHO, UNICEF and UNRWA called on all parties to the conflict to commit to another round of humanitarian pauses, with unhindered access to children in areas that require special coordination.

Original goal

The WHO noted that the campaign’s original target of 640,000 children estimated without careful investigation and possibly overestimateddue to displacement and ongoing hostilities.

The agency added that an additional 65 independent monitors were deployed to verify the proportion of children vaccinated across the Gaza Strip in order to independently assess the level of vaccination achieved in the first round.

They need safe and unhindered access so they can visit households, markets, transit points and health facilities and check children for the striking purple dye that is applied to their little fingers during vaccination, it said.

These efforts will provide an independent measure of the percentage of immunization coverage and how many children have been missed.

UNRWA staff killed in West Bank

However, the ongoing conflict continues to claim civilian lives, forcing thousands to flee and destroying homes and civilian infrastructure. The United Nations has also lost more than 220 UNRWA staff – killed during the Israeli offensive following the terrorist attacks by Hamas and other militants on October 7.

On Thursday, UNRWA lost another staff member who was killed in El Far'a camp in the northern West Bank, the first such killing in the region in more than a decade.

According to the agency, the employee, a garbage man, was shot dead by a sniper on the roof of his house during an Israeli military operation early in the morning. He leaves behind his wife and five children.

“This is the first time in more than a decade that a UNRWA staff member has been killed in the West Bank. This comes as the West Bank is experiencing unprecedented levels of violence that are putting its population at risk,” Roland Friedrich, UNRWA's director of affairs in the West Bank, said in a statement.

He pointed out that the protracted Israeli military operations, which particularly affected the El Far'a, Tulkarm, Nur Shams and Jenin camps, had forced UNRWA to suspend its services to refugees “due to the unacceptable risk to staff and beneficiaries during these operations”.

Mr Friedrich also expressed concern about the use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs) by armed Palestinian actors.