Gazans need access to polio vaccines amid ‘deathly cycle’ of malnutrition, heat and disease, say UN aid agencies
In a bid to prevent a polio epidemic in Gaza, UN humanitarians on Tuesday repeated continuing international calls for a ceasefire, to allow a mass vaccination campaign to get under way.
Almost 10 months of war and intense Israeli bombardment have shattered healthcare in Gaza and disrupted routine inoculation rounds for youngsters, leaving them exposed to a range of preventable diseases including polio, which the UN World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed had been identified last month in several sewage samples taken from Gaza.
Speaking to journalists in Geneva, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that a ceasefire would be “the best” solution, before calling at the very least for the enclave’s roads to be kept clear and for safe access for medical and other relief supplies. “Otherwise, the vaccines would be sitting as many other trucks are across the border, either on the Rafah side or at the other checkpoints either inside or just inside or outside Gaza,” he said, a week since the UN health agency announced that it was sending one million polio vaccines to the Strip.
No cases of paralysis have been reported so far, according to WHO.
If a child receives the full course of vaccines, the risk of contracting paralyzing polio is “negligible”, said UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder. He insisted that vaccine rates had been “very high” before war erupted in response to Hamas-led terror attacks on multiple targets in southern Israel which left some 1,250 dead and more than 250 taken hostage. “But the mass displacement, the decimation of health infrastructure, the horrendously insecure operating environment, they all make it much, much more difficult, hence putting more and more children at risk,” he said, adding that vaccination coverage was now at around 89 per cent – “hence you’ve got this increased risk for children”.
Condemning the reported destruction last week of a key water treatment station in the southern city of Rafah, Mr. Elder underscored the additional health dangers this had created for Gazans, now that it had been “blown up”. It is yet another grim reminder on these assaults on families who are already in desperate need of water,” he said.
Today across Gaza, average water availability has fallen to between two and nine litres per person, per day, whereas the minimum should be 15 litres, Mr. Elder continued. “Somehow people are holding on, but of course we are now in that deathly cycle whereby children are very malnourished, there is immense heat, there is lack of water, there's a horrendous lack of sanitation and that's the cycle. On top of that, of course, there is a very, very active conflict.”
In its latest update issued Monday evening, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, said that more than 200,000 people in Gaza – nine per cent of the population – have been forcibly displaced by Israeli evacuation orders.
Directives issued by the Israeli authorities on Saturday and Sunday impacted Rafah, Khan Younis and Deir al Balah “where a combined 56,000 people had been sheltering”, OCHA said, before warning that the development comes “at a time when water, sanitation and hygiene conditions are being further eroded in Gaza, with infectious diseases on the rise”.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
“Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza, are unconscionable. For a third day running, people were killed around an aid distribution site run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. This morning, we have received information that dozens more people were killed and injured,” Jeremy Laurence UN Human Rights spokesperson said at the biweekly press briefing in Geneva.
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Edited News | OCHA
Gaza ‘hungriest place on earth’ with aid stymied – UN humanitarians
Starving Gazans continue to be deprived of aid as international relief efforts are being severely constrained by the Israeli authorities, the UN humanitarian affairs coordination office OCHA said on Friday.
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Edited News | OCHA , UNRWA
As a controversial United States and Israel-backed aid distribution plan gets underway in Gaza, the UN called on Tuesday for an “immediate surge” of its own pre-positioned supplies to help prevent starvation.
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Edited News | OHCHR
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Edited News | OHCHR
UN Human Rights Office spokesperson Seif Magango today warned of a further deterioration in the human rights situation in South Sudan at the bi-weekly briefing in Geneva.
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Edited News | OCHA , WHO
Syria: ‘Staggering’ needs amid insecurity, health care crisis - UN humanitarians
Millions of people in Syria continue to face mortal danger from unexploded munitions, disease and malnutrition and urgent support is required, UN humanitarians said on Friday.
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Edited News | UNRWA , OCHA , WHO
UN life-saving aid allowed to trickle into Gaza as civilian needs mount
Amid calls for more humanitarian trucks to enter the food and medicine-deprived Palestinian enclave of Gaza, UN humanitarians have received permission from Israel for “around 100” more aid trucks to cross into the Strip after only five were let in yesterday, But the scale of relief efforts allowed remains entirely insufficient to meet the urgent needs of people there, humanitarian workers say.
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Edited News
A war reporter from Lebanon who lost a limb in the line of duty is calling for an end to impunity for attacks against journalists.
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Edited News | ITU
The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) commemorated 160 years dedicated to connecting the world on Saturday, 17 May in Geneva, Switzerland, during the annual World Telecommunication and Information Society Day.
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Edited News | WHO , OCHA
Gazans ‘in terror’ after another night of deadly strikes and siege
Amid reports that Israeli strikes across Gaza into Friday killed at least 64 people, aid teams once again pushed back strongly at allegations that aid is being diverted to Hamas and pleaded for the blockade to end.
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Edited News | OHCHR , UNOG
Deportations over recent months of large numbers of non-nationals from the United States of America, especially to countries other than those of their origin, raise a number of human rights concerns, the UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk warned on Tuesday.
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Edited News | WHO
Gaza: Over 50 child malnutrition deaths amid aid blockade; entire generation will be ‘permanently affected’ - WHO
In the aid desert of Gaza, malnourished children are dying while survivors can expect a lifetime of dire health problems, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) said on Tuesday.