The United Nations will start vaccinating some 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip against polio on Sunday, a campaign that relies on daily eight-hour pauses in fighting between Israel and Hamas militants in specific areas of the besieged enclave, APA reports citing Reuters.
The complex campaign, which is targeting children under age 10, follows confirmation last week that a baby was paralysed by the type 2 polio virus, the first such case in the territory in 25 years.
WHO officials say at least 90% of the children need to be vaccinated twice with four weeks between doses for the campaign to succeed, but it faces huge challenges in Gaza, which has been largely destroyed by nearly 11 months of war.
"It's not ideal," Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization's senior official for the Palestinian territories, told reporters in Geneva on Friday.
"We think it is feasible if all of the pieces of the puzzle are in place," he said.
The U.N. agency said the campaign would occur in three phases - in central, southern and northern Gaza.
Fighting will pause for at least eight hours on three consecutive days in each phase. The pauses could be extended for a fourth day in each phase, which the WHO said would likely be needed. That would mean each round of vaccinations could take just under two weeks.
But it appears the pauses in fighting will not cover the entirety of each zone, according to a map - seen by Reuters on Friday - that a U.N. source said was from COGAT. The map appears to show that the pause will take place in a smaller area within each zone.
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