ROME: The UN announced that the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza has been completed and vaccinated more than half a million children despite the ongoing war in Gaza.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) affirmed in a joint statement that the second round of the polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip was completed, with an overall 556,774 children under the age of 10 being vaccinated with a second dose of polio vaccine.
They said that an estimated 7,000 to 10,000 children remain in inaccessible areas, unvaccinated, and vulnerable to the poliovirus in hard-to-reach areas of northern Gaza, a remarkable achievement given the extremely difficult conditions in the besieged Strip.
In their joint statement, the two organizations called for a ceasefire and the systematic implementation of humanitarian truces, stressing the importance of polio emergency response efforts to include other health and humanitarian interventions in light of the catastrophic humanitarian crisis experienced by the residents of the Gaza Strip.
The first round of vaccination was successfully implemented from Sept. 1 to 12, and vaccinated 559,161 children, or an estimated 95% of the eligible children, while the second round began in central and southern Gaza on Oct. 14, but was unable to reach children in the north due to the intensification of the aggression.
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