With polio in Gaza, a new challenge emerges: How to vaccinate 640,000 children in a war zone?
CBC
Right now in central Gaza, there's a warehouse stacked high with boxes of polio vaccines just waiting to be distributed.
The 1.2 million doses arrived in Deir al-Balah on Sunday through the combined efforts of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).
The plan is to immunize 640,000 children in an attempt to halt the spread of a disease that has reared its head in the territory for the first time in a quarter century.
But in order to make it work, aid workers say they need peace — at least for a couple of days.
"It's almost impossible to do a polio vaccination campaign anywhere in the world if it's in the conflict combat zone," Jonathan Crickx, a spokesperson for UNICEF based in Jerusalem, told As It Happens host Nil Köksal.
"So it is absolutely required that at least some places, on some days, are safe — or relatively safe — so that we can operate and the families can come."
UNICEF, WHO and other aid organizations are calling for a series of temporary pauses in fighting — what they're calling "Days of Tranquillity" — to safely distribute two rounds of polio vaccines.
Doing so, Crickx says, is in everyone's best interest, regardless what side of the war they're on.
"Viruses don't know borders, walls or fences," Crickx said. "It's concerning for every child in the region, not only for the children who are currently living in the Gaza Strip."
The Israeli Defence Forces deferred requests for comment to COGAT, the Israeli military's humanitarian unit, which did not respond before deadline.
But both Israel and Hamas have previously indicated they would co-operate with immunization efforts.
The plan, Crickz says, is to distribute the vaccines to 11 health clinics, as well as mobile units, while simultaneously running an awareness campaign.
Those efforts were supposed to begin on Monday, but came to a grinding halt when Israel issued new evacuation orders on Sunday for Deir al-Balah.
The city in central Gaza is where the UN's operation centre is located, moved there from Rafah in the south after Israel ordered evacuations there.
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