Reporters from The Associated Press news agency saw roughly 10 infants receiving doses of vaccine in the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis on Saturday afternoon.
Eleven months of Israeli bombardment have created the ideal conditions to bring polio — which is spread mainly when contaminated stool from an infected person is orally ingested — back from near-eradication: destroyed water and sewage lines; hundreds of thousands crowded into patches of land lacking toilets and sewage systems; and a health care system that has collapsed under the weight of hostilities and war injuries, leading to a dramatic drop in routine vaccinations.
The U.N. health agency and partners are launching a campaign starting Sunday to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children in Gaza against polio, an ambitious effort amid a devastating war that has destroyed the territory's healthcare system.
A polio vaccination campaign kicked off in the devastated Gaza Strip on Saturday, almost a week after the World Health Organization confirmed the first case of the disease in decades.