Israel agrees to pauses in fighting for polio vaccine drive

The WHO is aiming to achieve 90% vaccine coverage across the strip, which is needed to stop transmission of the virus within Gaza (file photo)

Israel has agreed to a series of “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza to allow for the vaccination of children against polio, the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

The campaign will aim to vaccinate around 640,000 children across the Gaza strip and will begin on Sunday, senior WHO official Rik Peeperkorn said.

It will be rolled out in three separate stages, across the central, southern and northern parts of the strip. During each stage, fighting will pause for three consecutive days between 06:00 and 15:00 local time.

The agreement comes days after UN officials said a 10-month-old baby had been partially paralysed after contracting Gaza’s first case of polio for 25 years.

Around 1.26m doses of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) are already in Gaza, with 400,000 additional doses set to arrive soon.

The vaccinations will be carried out by UN staff and other local health workers. Over 2,000 health and community outreach personnel have been trained to administer the vaccine.

Louise Wateridge, a UN spokeswoman in Gaza, has called for a ceasefire to allow the vaccination programme to run safely.

"We cannot vaccinate children under a sky full of bombs and strikes, we cannot vaccinate children who are fleeing for their lives," she told Radio 4's Today programme on Friday.

"Any military operations during the time we are trying to roll out a vaccination campaign will affect our ability to deliver these vaccinations to children," she explained.

Ms Wateridge said children will receive two oral doses this week, and will need a repeat vaccination four weeks later.

The WHO is aiming to achieve 90% vaccine coverage across the strip, which is needed to stop transmission of the virus within Gaza.

An agreement is in place for an additional fourth day of vaccination and humanitarian pause if needed to achieve that level of vaccination.

Poliovirus is highly infectious and is most often spread through sewage and contaminated water.

It can cause disfigurement and paralysis, and is potentially fatal. It mainly affects children under the age of five.

The WHO says immunisation rates in Gaza and the occupied West Bank were optimal before the conflict. Polio vaccine coverage was estimated at 99% in 2022, although it had declined to 89% last year, according to the latest data.

The Israeli military said in July it had begun vaccinating its soldiers against the disease.

Hamas official Basem Naim told the Reuters news agency: "We are ready to cooperate with international organisations to secure this campaign, serving and protecting more than 650,000 Palestinian children in the Gaza Strip."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the series of three-day pauses were "not a ceasefire".

James Kariuki, UK deputy permanent representative to the UN, said he "strongly" welcomed the vaccination plan.

"We now need to see this in action and these pauses need to be long enough to deliver the 90% coverage required. When the campaign starts and thousands of vulnerable and unaccompanied children gather at vaccination sites, they must all be protected," he added.

Prof Hagai Levine, a spokesman for the Hostages Families Forum - a group which is calling for more action to secure the release of Israeli hostages - urged health workers to ensure those still being held are included in the vaccination campaign.

Israel launched a military campaign in Gaza in response to an unprecedented attack on southern Israel on 7 October by Hamas, during which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.

More than 40,530 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October, according to the territory's Hamas-run health ministry.