The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to launch an extensive vaccination campaign in the Gaza Strip on Sunday.
Some 44,000 children who could not be reached during the two years of the Israeli war against the militant Palestinian organization Hamas are to be vaccinated within 10 days against measles, mumps, rubella and polio, among others.
The next doses are to be administered in January.
Following the emergence of the polio virus in the Gaza Strip, the WHO carried out polio vaccination campaigns during ceasefires in the summer of 2024 and February 2025. Although there were mobile vaccination teams, some children could not be reached.
The WHO estimates that 20% of children under the age of five were never or only insufficiently vaccinated due to the conflict.
At the same time as the immunization campaign, the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF, will assess malnutrition in order to be able to help young people as quickly and specifically as possible.
According to the WHO, the general vaccination rate in the Gaza Strip before the war was 98%. It is now estimated to be less than 70%.
