About 560,000 children vaccinated in the first round of polio campaign in Gaza

About 560,000 children under the age of ten were vaccinated against polio during the first round of an emergency vaccination campaign that was carried out in three phases from September 1 to 12, 2024 in the Gaza Strip.

The 12-day campaign provided the new oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) to 558,963 children, after careful planning and coordination. This involved the use of a wide network of teams, vaccinating at selected fixed locations in health facilities and at field sites. Mobile and transit teams actively reached out to families living in shelters, tents and displacement camps, along with community workers who engaged families to raise awareness before and during the campaign. For each phase, an area-specific humanitarian pause of nine hours per day was agreed to ensure the safety of communities and health workers and to facilitate vaccination efforts.

“Health and social workers have shown incredible resilience, carrying out this campaign at an unprecedented scale and speed in the most difficult conditions in Gaza. The rapid action of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – from the moment the virus was discovered to the launch of the vaccination campaign – speaks to the effectiveness of the polio program. In areas where humanitarian breaks took place, the campaign brought not only vaccines, but also moments of calm. As we prepare for the next round in four weeks, we hope these breaks will last, as this campaign has clearly shown the world what is possible when peace is given a chance,” said Dr Richard Peeperkorn, WHO Representative for the Occupied Palestinian Territory (opt).

“It was critical that this ambitious campaign be carried out quickly, safely and effectively to protect children in the Gaza Strip and neighboring countries from the life-changing poliovirus,” said Jean Gough, UNICEF Special Representative in the State of Palestine. “The progress made in this first round is encouraging, but the work is far from over. We are ready to complete the task and call on everyone involved to ensure we can do it in the next round in four weeks, for the benefit of children everywhere.”

Partners at all levels recognize the common operational challenges they face during these efforts, including devastated infrastructure, from health facilities to roads, limited trained health personnel, access issues due to insecurity, limited fuel for generators used for safe vaccine storage and freezing ice packs and the constant movement of the population. However, these issues were resolved in time, with key support from the Palestinian Ministry of Health and UNRWA, to enable planned vaccination activities.

Despite these challenges and the conditions families in the Gaza Strip have endured over the past 11 months, families have flocked to health facilities to have their children vaccinated. This can be attributed to the Palestinian people's traditionally positive health-seeking behavior and an effective public awareness and mobilization campaign.

The original campaign target was 640,000 children, estimated in the absence of an accurate survey, which may have been an overestimate, as the population continues to move from place to place and people flee and kill each other due to constant hostilities. During the campaign, trained surveillance teams were deployed to oversee vaccination efforts. As a next step, an additional 65 independent observers are being deployed to cross-check the proportion of children vaccinated across the Gaza Strip to independently assess the level of coverage achieved in the first round. They need safe, unobstructed access so they can visit households, markets, transit points and health facilities to check if children have a prominent purple color on their little finger when vaccinated. These efforts will provide an independent measure of the percentage of vaccination achieved and the reasons for unvaccinated children.

A second round of the campaign will follow, ideally within four weeks, to provide a second dose of nOPV2 to children in Gaza to stop the outbreak and prevent its international spread.

In order to repeat this ambitious intervention, reach a sufficient number of children and successfully stop further transmission of poliovirus, WHO, UNICEF and UNRWA call on all parties to the conflict to commit to another round of humanitarian pauses, with unhindered access to children in areas that need special coordination.

Ultimately, we need a lasting ceasefire because all families in the Gaza Strip need peace so they can begin to heal and rebuild their lives.

Notes for editors:

The campaign was carried out as part of an urgent and robust response to the confirmation of a circulating variant of poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) in Gaza, which was found in the environment in July 2024, and in a 10-month-old child in August 2024. It was conducted by the Palestinian Ministry of Health (MOH), in collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and partners. Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) members, donors, WHO Member States and OPT partners, including part of the Health Cluster, played a key role in facilitating the campaign.

The campaign began with 473 teams, including 230 mobile teams and 143 vaccination sites, in central Gaza, followed by 91 fixed sites, complemented by 384 mobile teams in southern Gaza. It ended in northern Gaza, reaching children through 127 fixed-site teams and 104 mobile teams. Fixed sites included hospitals, medical posts, primary health care centers, temporary learning spaces, schools, and food and water distribution points. In addition, 749 community mobilizers were trained and deployed to engage communities, before and during the campaign to encourage families to vaccinate their children and address issues.

The new oral polio vaccine (nOPV2) is a polio vaccine that is used to stop the transmission of variant poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2), currently the most common variant form of poliovirus. nOPV2 is safe and effective and offers protection against paralysis and community transmission. It is the vaccine that is recommended globally for outbreaks of the type 2 variant of poliovirus – the type found in Gaza.