Second round of campaign to vaccinate children in Gaza against polio will be ‘more complicated’ [Video]

THE SECOND ROUND of an emergency campaign to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children in Gaza against polio is to begin next week. 

However, the United Nations has warned that this round will be “more complicated” than the first.

The UN agencies for health and for children said they were gearing up to start providing follow-up doses to some 591,700 children under the age of 10 across the besieged region from 14 October. 

It follows the successful first round that saw almost 600,000 children receive a first dose of the novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) vaccine in September. 

There has been a resurgence of the virus in Gaza due to Israel’s military offensive, which has seen 2.4 million residents forced to flee their homes and take refuge elsewhere, often in cramped and unsanitary conditions. 

In July, the World Health Organisation (WHO) warned that the polio virus was detected in wastewater samples in Gaza, and the Israeli military began …