Polio vaccinations in Gaza stall, nearly 120,000 children without crucial second dose

JERUSALEM – A vaccination campaign against polio in the northern Gaza Strip, on hold during Israel’s military onslaught of the area, is leaving nearly 120,000 children with only partial protection from the disease, according to UN officials.

The deadlock, which has left medical workers there unable to distribute a necessary second dose of the vaccine, gives the virus room to manoeuvre within Gaza and to spill into neighbouring countries that have worked hard to be free from the disease, experts warned.

“There is a safe haven for the virus in north Gaza, and that safe haven will remain if you don’t get all the children,” said Dr Hamid Jafari, director of polio eradication for the eastern Mediterranean region at the World Health Organisation.

If the virus circulates in northern Gaza, even those who are vaccinated – including Israeli soldiers or aid workers – could become infected at little risk to themselves, but might ferry the pathogen outside Gaza.

“That’s the risk,” Dr Jafari added.

United Nations agencies are trying to estimate what per cent of the partially immunised children in northern Gaza may come into Gaza City, and whether the conditions there will be conducive to a vaccination campaign.

If 75 per cent to 80 per cent of the children end up in Gaza City, inoculations there could begin as early as next week, Dr Jafari said.

Immunisation rates in Gaza had hovered around 99 per cent before the war but dropped to about 86 per cent by mid-2024.

Aid agencies sought to start a vaccination campaign after traces of poliovirus were found in wastewater in July, and a 10-month-old boy was confirmed in August to be the first Gaza resident to be paralysed by poliovirus in 25 years.

In September, temporary pauses in the war, agreed to by Israel and Hamas, allowed aid workers to immunise about 640,000 children under 10 who were at risk of the disease.

The campaign began in central Gaza, moved to the south and ended in the northern area.

A second round of inoculations, intended to be given within six weeks after the first, proceeded in the central and southern regions, but renewed military activity made it impossible in the north.

In recent days, Israeli forces have pounded Jabalia, a town in northern Gaza, killing dozens of people, according to a Palestinian emergency services group.

It also struck a large residential building in Beit Lahia, killing dozens.

No UN aid has reached the north since early last week and telecommunications with the area were cut, so it was not possible to speak to UN staff who were trapped there, according to Ms Juliette Touma, a spokeswoman for UNRWA, the UN agency that provides aid to Palestinians.

“It is impossible to vaccinate children when the skies are full of air strikes and during a military campaign,” she said.

The Israel Defence Forces and Cogat, the Israeli agency that coordinates policy in Gaza and the West Bank, said in a statement on Oct 25 that they were working to facilitate the administration of second doses to children in northern Gaza.

To halt the movement of the poliovirus, at least 80 per cent of the population must be fully protected, through either prior illness or vaccination.

The campaign in Gaza has relied on delivering two drops of an oral vaccine, which contains a weakened version of the poliovirus.

The oral vaccine produces immunity in the intestines, where the virus replicates, and effectively stops the pathogen from spreading to others.

To prevent the virus from finding a foothold, ideally all children who need the vaccine should be immunised at once, Dr Jafari said.

“When you do it everywhere, the virus has nowhere to go,” he added.

A single dose provides some protection from the virus, and a second dose would boost immunity in the intestines.

It might also reach children who were missed the first time or who did not respond adequately to the first dose. NYTIMES