United Nations, October 19 (IANS). World Health Organization (WHO) teams are working on the ground to deliver supplies to health facilities ahead of the start of the second phase of a polio vaccination campaign in southern Gaza, UN humanitarian workers said.
“The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the second phase of the polio vaccination campaign in southern Gaza will begin on Saturday and aims to provide the second dose of the vaccine to more than 293,000 children and 100,000 children,” Xinhua news agency reported. Vitamin A supplements are to be given to more than 284,000 children.
The second round of a polio vaccination campaign concluded in central Gaza on Wednesday, vaccinating more than 181,000 children and giving vitamin A doses to more than 148,000 children, bringing the total to 559,000 in the Gaza Strip following the first round held from September 1 to 12. More than 100,000 children were reached.
Meanwhile, OCHA said it continued to warn about the increasingly dire and dangerous situation facing civilians in the northern part of Gaza. The families there are trying to survive in horrific conditions amid heavy bombardment.
UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, has now confirmed another attack on one of its schools in the north, the office said. This is the third such attack this week. Let us tell you that on Thursday there was an attack on the school in Jabalya, in which many people including children taking shelter there were killed.
OCHA has warned that lack of access to the Jabalya area is putting lives at risk. The office said on Friday it urgently requested Israeli authorities to help rescue several people still alive trapped under the debris.
OCHA said no food supplies reached northern Gaza in early October. The World Food Program was able to reach only 100,000 people due to ongoing battles with access and lack of supplies. On Tuesday, 12 trucks full of flour arrived in northern Gaza after two weeks of closed crossings, but the supplies were only enough for 9,200 families.
OCHA said it urged Israeli authorities to allow safe, rapid, sustained and unhindered access to Jabalya and all areas in the north where people are in desperate need of assistance.
“Aid organizations should be allowed to carry out their life-saving work in the Gaza Strip,” the office said.
–IANS
MKS/AS
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