UNITED NATIONS, August 30. /TASS/. Russia calls upon the global community to spare no effort for preventing a polio outbreak in the Gaza Strip, Russian First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Dmitry Polyansky said.
"A massive vaccination campaign announced by the UN is imperiled. Despite the difficult situation, humanitarian personnel managed to deliver 1.2 million doses of vaccine to Gaza. However, the intensification of hostilities, multiplying Israeli evacuation orders and restrictions on medical personnel entering the enclave have thwarted efforts to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children in the Gaza Strip," he told a UN Security Council briefing on humanitarian situation in the enclave.
"We call on the international community to do everything possible to prevent the spread of polio in Gaza and to exert pressure on Israel to that end," the Russian diplomat added. "At the same time, it is important not to allow the need for polio vaccination to overshadow the more important task of the Security Council members, which is to achieve an open-ended and sustainable cessation of hostilities."
The World Health Organization (WHO) Representative for the West Bank and Gaza Richard Peeperkorn has told reporters on Thursday the United Nations had reached a tentative agreement with parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to declare a humanitarian pause that would enable polio vaccination in the Gaza Strip.
Palestine’s health ministry said on August 16 that the first polio case had been confirmed in the central Gaza Strip. According to the ministry, the first polio case was registered in the city of Deir al-Balah in a ten-month baby who had receives no vaccine dose. The diagnosis was confirmed in a laboratory in Amman, Jordan.
On the same day, WHO and UNICEF issued a joint statement announcing a two-stage polio vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip in late August and September.
Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for the UN Secretary General, said on August 27 that the United Nations would set up 11 health centers in the Gaza Strip to conduct a vaccination campaign against polio. The global organization is training over 1,000 medical workers and volunteers to participate in the campaign. The vaccine will be provided to more than 640,000 children under 10 years of age, with the aim of reaching at least 95% of the children in the first round. The Palestinian Red Crescent Society said on Wednesday the first round of vaccination will begin on August 31.
Poliomyelitis, commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease that largely affects children under 5 years of age. It is caused by the poliovirus that virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread and mainly affects nerves in the spinal cord or brain stem.