Mass polio vaccinations in Gaza amid limited pause in fighting, U.N. says

UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini said Sunday morning that it was a “race against time” to reach Gaza’s children in the coming days and urged all parties to respect the “temporary area pauses.”

The WHO said last week that the campaign to immunize 640,000 children under the age of 10 will unfold during limited “humanitarian pauses.” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Saturday that Israel will allow a “humanitarian corridor” for vaccination personnel and designate safe areas for administering the vaccines during certain hours.

Lazzarini said Sunday that the vaccination campaign began in the “middle areas.” Rik Peeperkorn, who heads WHO operations in Gaza and the West Bank, said last week that the vaccine rollout will begin in central Gaza, moving to the south and then the north.

Polio affects the nervous system and is most frequently transmitted by mouth or through feces. It is difficult to contain because most people who are infected either have no symptoms or mild flu-like symptoms, potentially spreading the virus unknowingly.

A polio vaccine has existed since 1955, but a confluence of wartime factors has resulted in the disease’s return to the Gaza Strip. The conflict has ravaged the enclave’s water, sanitation and health infrastructure, and since the war began in October, the WHO said, Gaza’s polio vaccination rate has dropped from 99 percent to 86 percent.

Health authorities in Gaza confirmed in August the first case of polio detected in there in 25 years, warning that a number of children had presented symptoms “consistent with polio.” The virus was detected in July in six sewage samples taken from southern and central Gaza, where the majority of the displaced population has been packed into squalid living conditions.

A small number of infants in southern Gaza were administered the vaccine on Saturday as a symbolic start to the program.

Vaccination is key for stopping the disease’s spread. Children under 5 are most vulnerable to polio, although anyone who is unvaccinated can contract it. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, the WHO says, adding that among those paralyzed, between 5 and 10 percent die when breathing muscles become immobilized.

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Israeli forces recovered the bodies of six hostages from Gaza, including Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the Israel Defense Forces said early Sunday. The bodies of two women and four men were recovered Saturday from an underground tunnel in Rafah, the statement said. Apart from Goldberg-Polin, 23, the bodies of Carmel Gat, 40; Eden Yerushalmi, 24; Alexander Lobanov, 32; Almog Sarusi, 27; and Ori Danino, 25, were also recovered.

President Joe Biden said that he was “still optimistic” about a cease-fire deal and that “people are continuing to meet.” Leaving St. Edmond Church in Rehoboth, Del., on Saturday, Biden told reporters: “We think we can close the deal; they’ve all said they agree on the principles.”

At least 40,691 ​​people have been killed and 94,060 injured in Gaza since the war started, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the dead are women and children. Israel estimates that about 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, including more than 300 soldiers, and it says 339 soldiers have been killed since the start of its military operations in Gaza.