GENEVA, Oct 23 — The World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Wednesday that the polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza has been postponed due to heavy Israeli bombing and displacement, the German news agency (dpa) reported.
It said that around 120,000 children under the age of 10 were to be given the second dose of the vaccine.
The first round of vaccines was completed in mid-September after the first polio case in 25 years was detected in Gaza.
In the central and southern Gaza Strip, almost 443,000 children have already received their second dose of the vaccine, the WHO said.
Israel has intensified its attacks on suspected hideouts of Hamas in the northern Gaza Strip.
Thousands of people have been told to leave their homes in an attempt to prevent civilian casualties, but there are few safe locations for them to retreat to.
The WHO said that the promised humanitarian pauses to enable the vaccination campaign were not being respected and that the ceasefire zone that had been agreed upon had been reduced.
The pauses were designed to allow families to take their children to vaccination centres or mobile teams that would administer vaccines in people’s homes or shelters.
The WHO warned in a statement of the consequences of halting the vaccination programme.
“Having a significant number of children miss out on their second vaccine dose will seriously jeopardise efforts to stop the transmission of poliovirus in Gaza," it said.
Polio tends to spread where many people are living together in poor hygienic conditions and can cause permanent paralysis and even death.
— Bernama-dpa
