The World Health Organisation (WHO) announced on Wednesday that it plans to vaccinate more than 40,000 children in Gaza against various diseases as part of the recent ceasefire.
The WHO and its partners have already vaccinated nearly 10,000 children under the age of three in the first eight days of the campaign’s inaugural phase, which began on November 9.
WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said phase one of the programme has been extended till Saturday and aims to protect children from measles, mumps, rubella, diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B, TB, polio, rotavirus, and pneumonia.
Phases two and three of the campaign, which is being carried out in partnership with UNICEF, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA), and Gaza’s health ministry under Hamas’s rule, are scheduled for December and January.
The World Health Organization’s chief stated that he was “encouraged to see that the ceasefire continues to hold, as it allows the WHO and its partners to intensify essential health services across Gaza and support the necessary re-equipment and reconstruction of its devastated health system.”
The UN Security Council voted on Monday to support US President Donald Trump’s plan to aid the formation of a truce between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip on October 10.
The truce has already been marked by many outbreaks of violence in Palestinian territory, which has been devastated by nearly two years of hostilities initiated by Hamas’ murderous onslaught on Israel on October 7, 2023.
According to an AFP tally of official data, 1,221 Israelis died as a result of the strike, the majority of whom were civilians.
The Israeli military’s retaliation campaign has killed over 69,500 Palestinians, according to the Gaza health ministry.
The ministry, whose data are deemed reputable by the UN, does not quantify the number of combatants killed but does state that more than half of the deaths are kids and women.
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