Gaza Begins Polio Vaccination Campaign Amidst Ongoing Conflict

On Sunday, health workers in the Gaza Strip launched a critical polio vaccination campaign to prevent the spread of the highly contagious disease. The campaign faces significant challenges due to the ongoing conflict and the devastation caused by ten months of war. The success of the initiative hinges on the fragile “humanitarian pauses” agreed upon by both Israel and Hamas.

Responding to international pressure to prevent a potential outbreak, Israel swiftly permitted UN agencies, in coordination with local health officials, to begin tackling the crisis in Gaza. The conflict was initiated by Israel following a Hamas-led attack on October 7. Although the official start of the vaccination drive was scheduled for Sunday, health authorities in Gaza began administering the vaccine on Saturday at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Videos captured health workers administering the polio vaccine to children in the hospital.

“I learned about the campaign by chance and was terrified when I heard the word ‘polio,'” said Maysaa Abu Daqqa, a mother waiting with her 9-year-old son, Habib Nizam, at Nasser Hospital. “But seeing other mothers vaccinate their children encouraged me to do the same,” she added.

Both Hamas and Israel have agreed to temporary cessations in fighting to allow the vaccination effort, but the campaign will be challenging to implement. With much of Gaza’s infrastructure in ruins and around 90 percent of its nearly 2 million residents displaced by Israeli airstrikes, it will be difficult to vaccinate all 640,000 children under the age of 10 in the territory.

Families seeking vaccinations for their children face numerous hurdles. They must trust that the pauses in fighting will hold, navigate dangerous and obstructed roads, and expose themselves to the risks of a war-torn environment to reach vaccination sites.

The 2,100 trained health workers conducting the vaccination campaign will also face significant dangers, including the risk of attacks that have plagued aid workers since the conflict began.

Poliovirus, which can cause paralysis and death in unvaccinated individuals, thrives in unsanitary conditions and areas with low vaccination rates. Once nearly eradicated globally, polio has reemerged as a threat in Gaza, where vaccination rates, previously around 99 percent in 2022, have plummeted due to the ongoing conflict.

The vaccination campaign will proceed in stages, with fighting temporarily halted in different regions of Gaza to allow health workers to vaccinate children at approximately 700 medical facilities, mobile clinics, and shelters. Israel has agreed to establish “humanitarian corridors” for vaccination personnel and designate “safe areas” during specific hours to facilitate the campaign.

The first phase of the campaign is set to begin in central Gaza and will last for three days, with each humanitarian pause occurring from early morning until mid-afternoon. If necessary, the campaign could be extended, with health officials then focusing on southern Gaza. The northern region will be the final area to receive vaccinations according to the staggered schedule announced by global health authorities.

On Saturday, Gaza residents received text messages from the Health Ministry announcing the start of the vaccination drive for children under 10 years old, beginning Sunday.

The World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF have already delivered more than 1.2 million doses of oral polio vaccine to Gaza, with an additional 400,000 doses on the way. After the initial round of vaccinations, a second booster round will be required four weeks later. Israel has agreed to repeat the staggered humanitarian pauses to allow for the booster campaign as well.

The scale and complexity of this vaccination drive are unprecedented in the context of the Israel-Hamas conflict. The swift coordination—achieved in just six weeks after the virus was first detected—underscores the serious threat posed by a potential polio outbreak.

Polio, which spreads rapidly and can be transmitted through contact with an infected person’s feces or through contaminated food and water, is not only a risk within Gaza but could also spread to neighboring countries such as Egypt and Israel. Whether the outbreak can be contained remains uncertain, according to health experts.

In response, Israel has started offering booster vaccines to soldiers operating in Gaza. However, a public health expert warned in Foreign Policy that this may not be sufficient to prevent an outbreak in Israel, particularly among the ultra-Orthodox Jewish community, which comprises about 17 percent of the population and has lower vaccination rates.

The war has severely compromised access to clean water and sanitation in Gaza, heightening the risk of preventable diseases. Aid and rights groups have accused Israel of destroying critical infrastructure, including two-thirds of Gaza’s sewage pumps and all of its wastewater treatment plants. After poliovirus was detected in Gaza’s sewage in July, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned that the conditions created a “perfect environment” for diseases like polio to spread.

These concerns intensified two weeks ago when Gaza reported its first polio case in 25 years—a nearly one-year-old boy.

As the conflict continues, tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are living in overcrowded camps with limited access to water and sanitation. According to a UN assessment, some 340,000 tons of solid waste have accumulated in or near populated areas.

Amidst skepticism on social media about the vaccine drive’s efficacy given the ongoing violence, WHO’s Ghebreyesus emphasized that while humanitarian pauses are necessary, a ceasefire is the ultimate solution. “The best medicine is peace,” he stated in an online video.