Global Health: Initial pledge of humanitarian truce for polio vaccination in Gaza

A senior WHO official said Thursday the organization had received a “tentative pledge of temporary truces in designated humanitarian areas” in the war in the Gaza Strip to allow a polio vaccination campaign.

The United Nations is preparing to vaccinate an estimated 640,000 children in the Gaza Strip, with the World Health Organization (WHO) confirming on Aug. 23 that at least one infant had already been paralyzed by type 2 poliovirus, the first case detection in the territory in 25 years.

Last week, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported the first case of type 2 polio in the Gaza Strip in 25 years, with a 10-month-old baby paralyzed in his lower left leg due to the virus.