First day of Gaza polio vaccination campaign reaches 87,000 children

The UN-led polio immunization campaign in the Gaza Strip is progressing, but continued fighting is making it difficult for many families to reach the vaccination centres.

Louise Wateridge from UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, said nearly 87,000 children were vaccinated on Sunday, the first day of the campaign.

The World Health Organization (WHO) put the number at 86,683.

By Tuesday, around 156,000 under-10s in the "middle area" of the Gaza Strip should have been reached. The children will need a second dose of the vaccine in four weeks.

But the spokeswoman said it was too dangerous for some families to go to the vaccination centres, and it was also difficult for mobile vaccination teams to reach these families due to the violence.

Daily pauses in fighting in areas of central Gaza to facilitate the vaccination efforts are in effect from 6 am to 2 pm.

Yet Wateridge noted that the fighting had not stopped completely, and there had been several Israeli military strikes overnight and early Monday.

According to the WHO, more than 90% of children need to be vaccinated to prevent the polio virus from spreading.

Unhygienic conditions with hundreds of thousands of displaced people in a confined space led to the first case of polio in 25 years recently being discovered in Gaza.