World Health Organization aims to vaccinate 40,000 children in Gaza Strip
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The WHO and its partners have already vaccinated over 10,000 children under the age of three in the first eight days of the campaign.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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GENEVA – The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Nov 19 that it aims to vaccinate more than 40,000 children against various diseases in Gaza, as it takes advantage of the recent ceasefire.
The WHO and its partners have already vaccinated over 10,000 children under the age of three in the first eight days of an initial phase of the campaign launched on Nov 9.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said phase one of the programme has been extended until Nov 22 and hopes to protect children against diphtheria, hepatitis B, pneumonia, polio, measles, mumps, rotavirus, rubella, tetanus, tuberculosis and whooping cough.
Phases two and three of the campaign, which are being conducted in collaboration with UNICEF, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and the Health Ministry in Gaza under Hamas control, are planned for December and January.
Dr Tedros said he was “encouraged to see that the ceasefire continues to hold, as it allows the WHO and its partners to intensify essential health services across Gaza and support the necessary re-equipment and reconstruction of its devastated health system”.
The UN Security Council voted on Nov 17 to endorse the plan
The truce has already been marred by several outbreaks of violence in the Palestinian territory, which has been devastated by over two years of hostilities triggered by the bloody Hamas attack in Israel on Oct 7, 2023
That attack resulted in the deaths of 1,221 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count of official data.
More than 69,500 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory campaign, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
The ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the UN, does not specify the number of combatants killed but indicates that more than half of the fatalities are women and children. AFP
