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Vaccination Campaign Sparks Temporary Pauses In Israel-Gaza Conflict

Israel and Hamas have agreed to three separate three-day pauses in fighting in Gaza to allow for a polio vaccination campaign.

“Rik Peeperkorn, the World Health Organization’s representative for the West Bank and Gaza, told a press briefing from a video link Thursday that the pause would start September 1,” CNN reports.

The vaccination campaign seeks to inoculate 640,000 children against polio.

From The Times of Israel:

Israel said it delivered 25,100 vials of the polio vaccine to Gaza via the Kerem Shalom Crossing on Sunday, as the United Nations has urged an inoculation campaign in the Strip following the first case of polio there in 25 years.

The vaccines will be enough to inoculate 1,255,000 people, just over half of the Strip’s population, according to COGAT, Israel’s civilian coordination agency for the Palestinian territories, which released footage of the delivery.

COGAT said “international and local medical teams” will administer the vaccines in various locations over the coming days to children who have not yet received a dose, “as part of the routine humanitarian pauses that will allow the population to reach the medical centers where the vaccinations will be administered.”

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“Did someone ask ChatGPT to generate a headline that would upset Candace Owens the most? This is beyond parody,” Candace Owens commented.

“We have a preliminary commitment for area-specific humanitarian pauses during the campaign,” Peeperkorn said, according to CNN.

The three-day pauses will occur in central Gaza, south Gaza, and north Gaza.

Per CNN:

An Israeli official confirmed to CNN that polio vaccinations will begin in Gaza on September 1. Each phase of the vaccination campaign is expected to take around seven hours, and during those hours, the vaccines will be able enter the area on “pause” and be distributed.

COGAT, the Israeli agency responsible for approving aid into Gaza, did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for more information about how the distribution would be structured.

Basem Naim, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, said the militant group welcomed the push for a pause in Gaza to implement the vaccination drive. “We are ready to cooperate with international organizations to secure this campaign,” he added.

Since the war, Gaza’s near-universal polio vaccine coverage has dropped to just over 80%. Peeperkorn told the UN press briefing that more than 90% coverage was needed to stop the outbreak in the besieged Palestinian territory.

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He warned that the three-day periods “might not be enough to achieve adequate vaccination,” adding that it “has been agreed, when needed, the campaign will be extended by one day per zone, or even more when necessary.”

He added that it would be a two-round vaccination campaign with a four-week interval between the first and second doses.

“The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced it will commit $1.2 billion to support efforts to end all forms of polio globally. The announcement was made ahead of a key pledging moment that will be co-hosted by Germany and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI),” the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation wrote in 2022.

From the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation:

With its Strategy 2022-2026, the GPEI is working to further integrate polio campaigns with broader health services and essential immunization programs. Continuing to scale up the use of an innovative new tool—the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2)—is essential to stopping outbreaks of variant poliovirus more sustainably. Investments in GPEI also help strengthen national health systems and ensure that countries are better prepared to respond to future health threats. In addition, the strategy continues the GPEI’s commitment to achieving gender equality across all levels of the program.

“The last steps to eradication are by far the toughest. But our foundation remains dedicated to a polio-free future, and we’re optimistic that we will see it soon,” said Mark Suzman, CEO of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “Our investments in polio eradication not only bring us closer to that critical goal, they build long-term resilience by bolstering health care infrastructure and ensuring we’re prepared to respond to future pandemics.”

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“Health officials in Burundi have declared an outbreak of polio linked to the vaccine, the first time the paralytic disease has been detected in the East African country for more than three decades,” the Associated Press noted last year.

From the Associated Press:

The oral vaccine can also cause polio in about two to four children per 2 million doses. In extremely rare cases, the weakened virus can also sometimes mutate into a more dangerous form and spark outbreaks, especially in places with poor sanitation and low vaccination levels.

In recent years, the oral polio vaccine has caused far more cases of polio than the wild polio virus. Last year, cases linked to the oral vaccine turned up in rich countries including Britain, Israel and the U.S. for the first time in years.

Officials began rolling out a new oral polio vaccine last year that they hoped would be less likely to mutate into a version able to trigger new outbreaks. But the epidemic in Burundi — in addition to six cases in Congo — were found to have been sparked by the new oral vaccine.

Across Africa, more than 400 cases of polio last year were linked to the oral vaccine, including Congo, Nigeria, Ethiopia and Zambia.

This is a Guest Post from our friends over at 100 Percent Fed Up.

View the original article here.


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