WHO: More than 552,000 children in Gaza have had first polio jab dose

The first round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip is nearing completion, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, with more than 552,000 children having received their first dose of the oral vaccine.

The campaign is expected to be concluded by Thursday, WHO representative Richard Peeperkorn said in a video call from the Gaza Strip.

He said it had been incredibly encouraging to see the response to this campaign and that everywhere the teams went, parents did everything they could to ensure their child did not miss the vaccination.

Children in Gaza are due to receive a second dose of the vaccination in a campaign scheduled to start in approximately four weeks, he said.

Originally, UN aid workers had estimated that 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip would need to be vaccinated but this number was slightly overestimated, according to the WHO.

The campaign comes after three cases of polio were detected in the densely populated war zone in July.

The first case of polio in 25 years was recently discovered in the Gaza Strip, where conditions are catastrophic amid the war triggered in October last year.

Experts fear that a polio outbreak might be imminent as hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people are currently forced to live in cramped living conditions.

More than 90% of children need to be vaccinated to prevent the spread of polio, which can cause paralysis, according to WHO figures.