LONDON: A temporary pause in fighting in Gaza for a polio vaccination roll-out must lead to a permanent ceasefire for it to be beneficial, a UK aid agency has said.
A health official in the enclave said a polio vaccination campaign had begun on Saturday after the war-torn territory recorded its first case of the disease in a quarter of a century.
Local health officials along with the UN and nongovernmental organizations “are starting today the polio vaccination campaign in the central region,” Moussa Abed, director of primary health care at the Gaza health ministry, said.
Action For Humanity, one of the leading aid agencies working in Gaza, called for the agreed humanitarian pause to be made permanent, otherwise it would prove to be counterproductive.
“Whilst we at Action For Humanity welcome the temporary halt in violence in order for polio vaccinations to be distributed, it is not even nearly enough,” Othman Moqbel, Action For Humanity’s CEO, said.
“In reality, a temporary humanitarian pause is no humanitarian pause at all. Only a permanent pause will serve the spiraling needs of the people of Gaza.
“And it has been shown it can be done. If this war can be stopped to stop children dying from polio, why can the war not be stopped to stop children dying from war?” he added.
The World Health Organization said on Thursday that Israel had agreed to a series of three-day “humanitarian pauses” in Gaza to facilitate vaccinations.
The campaign, which involves two doses, aims to cover more than 640,000 children under 10.
