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full screen A child receives a vaccine against polio, in a hospital in the Gaza city of Dayr al-Balah on September 1. Photo: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP/TT
The vaccine effort against polio in the war-torn Gaza Strip has gone as planned, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Then nine out of ten children who are under ten years old have received the first of two vaccine doses.
– We assess that we have probably achieved the goal, says the UN agency’s spokesperson in the Palestinian territories, Rik Peeperkorn.
After the first confirmed case of polio in 25 years, a major vaccination drive was launched last week, targeting over 640,000 children in Gaza.
To enable this, there have been local “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting. A second phase of the effort is supposed to take place in about four weeks, when the children will be given a second vaccine dose.
Polio is highly contagious and spreads mainly among children. In around one in 100 people infected, the disease knocks out nerves in the spinal cord, which can lead to paralysis and death.