In a recent move, Israeli forces on Thursday rejected coordination for the entry of medical teams from the emergency polio vaccination campaign into areas east of Salah al-Din Street in the southern Gaza Strip, as reported by the German News Agency.
The Palestinian News and Information Agency (WAFA) stated that the campaign, which was scheduled to launch today in the Khan Younis Governorate and other southern areas, has been blocked.
These regions house a significant proportion of the targeted demographic of children for the vaccination effort.
This refusal came after the vaccination campaign successfully concluded its first phase on Wednesday, which covered the central governorate of the Gaza Strip. During this phase, approximately 190,000 children received their first dose of the vaccine.
This blockade poses a significant health risk to thousands of children who are at risk of contracting polio due to interrupted vaccination efforts.
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced the successful completion of the first phase of the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza, where about 200,000 children in the central region received the first dose.
The disease has spread in the devastated area, where the majority of the 2.4 million population have been forced to flee their homes since the onset of the Israeli military attack, with many of these displaced people seeking refuge in dire shelters.
In mid-August, the first case of polio in a ten-month-old infant was recorded in the sector, marking the first instance in the area in a quarter of a century.
Since 2014, the WHO has classified polio as a global health emergency, the highest level of alert issued by the international health body. The immunization campaign aims to vaccinate over 640,000 children in the war-torn, besieged sector that has been devastated by nearly 11 months of ongoing conflict.
