The United Arab Emirates (UAE) support has accelerated the vaccination of over 187,000 children in Gaza since the launch of the polio campaign, Emirates News Agency WAM reported.
This effort, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), has been in response to the emergency situation following the first case of type 2 polio recorded in the Gaza Strip in 25 years.
President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan had directed the provision of USD 5 million to support the emergency polio vaccination campaign in Gaza after the first case of the virus was detected in the strip.
This initiative is part of the ongoing efforts by the UAE to provide relief to the Palestinian people amid the critical conditions they are facing.
The campaign is racing against time to achieve its ultimate goal of vaccinating 640,000 children, especially in light of the widespread forced displacement, severe overcrowding, and extensive damage to the health system and water and sanitation infrastructure in many areas of the Gaza strip.
With the participation of 2,100 medical staff and mobile health teams, around 1.26 million doses of the polio vaccine that have already reached Gaza will be distributed in phases, with each phase lasting three days during limited humanitarian ceasefire periods for each area.
An additional 400,000 doses of the vaccine are expected to arrive in the sector within days.
The World Health Organisation said on Tuesday that the campaign to vaccinate 640,000 children in Gaza against polio had so far been more successful than expected as families flocked to receive the treatment.
Teams of health workers delivered the two-drop oral vaccine to 161,030 children in the first two days of the nearly 10-day operation, surpassing the organisation’s goal of 150,000 for the first phase of the campaign in central Gaza.
“It’s going well,” Rik Peeperkorn, the organisation’s representative for the Palestinian territories, told reporters by video link from Gaza on Tuesday, describing an “almost festive” atmosphere as families went to designated sites to get their children vaccinated.
