The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed that the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, which has been ongoing for nearly 10 months, has destroyed the healthcare system in the Strip and disrupted routine vaccination rounds for children, exposing them to a range of preventable diseases, including polio.
Christian Lindmeier, the WHO’s spokesman, said in statements Tuesday that during the past month, the polio virus was discovered in several samples taken from sewage in Gaza, calling for a ceasefire to allow a mass vaccination campaign in an attempt to prevent the spread of the polio epidemic in the Strip, and demanding the opening of the Strip’s roads and the provision of safe access for medical supplies and other relief supplies.
He noted that a week after the WHO announced its intention to send one million polio vaccines, the matter is still suspended, saying, “If this does not happen, the vaccines will remain in their places, as is the case with many other trucks across the border, either on the R
afah side or at other checkpoints, either inside Gaza or just outside it.” For his part, James Elder, spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), stressed that vaccination rates in Gaza were “very high” before the start of the Israeli aggression, “but the mass displacement, the destruction of health infrastructure, and the horribly unsafe working environment, all make it more difficult, thus putting more and more children at risk,” indicating that vaccination coverage is now about 89 percent, “so there is an increased risk to children,” stressing the additional health risks caused by the occupation’s bombing of one of the main water facilities in Rafah a few days ago, to the residents of the Strip.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) confirmed Monday, that more than 200,000 people in Gaza, equivalent to about nine percent of the population, were displaced during the past week, following evacuation orders by the occupation army.
Source: Qatar News Ag
ency