A second round of polio vaccinations for children in the Gaza Strip is set to begin on Monday, the UN Children’s Fund, UNICEF, said on Thursday.

The plan is to provide a necessary second dose to 590,000 children under 10, UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell said in a post on the social media platform X.

The children will also receive vitamin A supplements to strengthen their immune systems.

“Area-specific humanitarian pauses have been agreed.

“It’s critical that these pauses are respected by all parties,” Ms Russell said, adding: “Without them, it is impossible to vaccinate the children.”

The first round of polio vaccinations in Gaza began in early September and lasted about a week.

The Israeli army observed temporary and localised ceasefires so that volunteers could inoculate children in vaccination centres and their homes.

According to the World Health Organisation, more than 90 per cent of children must be vaccinated to prevent the spread of the disease.

The second polio vaccine dose must be administered four weeks after the first one.

Local health authorities are carrying out the mass vaccination campaign, UNICEF, the United Nations Relief and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The Gaza Strip had been polio-free for 25 years.

Due to the mass displacements and the unsanitary conditions in which people have had to live for months, the virus that can cause polio has reappeared in water samples.

In August, health officials in Gaza reported their first polio case, found in a baby infected with the virus.

Since the beginning of the Israeli military action in Gaza just over a year ago, hundreds of thousands of people in the territory have been repeatedly displaced.

The war was triggered by the unprecedented terrorist attack on southern Israel by the Palestinian militant organisation Hamas and its allies, which killed over 1,200 people and abducted around 250 more into the Gaza Strip. 

(dpa/NAN)