{"id":299400,"date":"2024-07-30T11:28:33","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T15:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=299400"},"modified":"2024-08-01T14:11:50","modified_gmt":"2024-08-01T18:11:50","slug":"press-briefing-unicef-who-30jul24","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/press-briefing-unicef-who-30jul24\/","title":{"rendered":"Gazans need access to polio vaccines amid \u2018deathly cycle\u2019 of malnutrition, heat and disease, say UN aid agencies"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

Fran\u00e7ais<\/a><\/p>\n

30 July 2024<\/p>\n

Press briefing Audio Clip:<\/strong><\/h2>\nhttps:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/2024-07-30-115358034550.mp4.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

<\/h2>\n

Gazans need access to polio vaccines amid \u2018deathly cycle\u2019 of malnutrition, heat and disease, say UN aid agencies<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Speaking to journalists in Geneva, WHO spokesperson Christian Lindmeier said that a ceasefire would be \u201cthe best\u201d solution, before calling at the very least for the enclave\u2019s roads to be kept clear and for safe access for medical and other relief supplies. \u201cOtherwise, 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,\u201d he said, a week since the UN health agency announced that it was sending one million polio vaccines to the Strip.<\/p>\n

No cases of paralysis have been reported so far, according to WHO.<\/p>\n

If a child receives the full course of vaccines, the risk of contracting paralyzing polio is \u201cnegligible\u201d, said UN Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF) spokesperson James Elder. He insisted that vaccine rates had been \u201cvery high\u201d 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. \u201cBut 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,\u201d he said, adding that vaccination coverage was now at around 89 per cent \u2013 \u201chence you\u2019ve got this increased risk for children\u201d.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cblown up\u201d. It is yet another grim reminder on these assaults on families who are already in desperate need of water,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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. \u201cSomehow 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

In its latest update issued Monday evening, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA,\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0that more than 200,000 people in Gaza \u2013 nine per cent of the population \u2013 have been forcibly displaced by Israeli evacuation orders.<\/p>\n

Directives issued by the Israeli authorities on Saturday and Sunday impacted Rafah, Khan Younis and Deir al Balah \u201cwhere a combined 56,000 people had been sheltering\u201d, OCHA said, before warning that the development comes \u201cat a time when water, sanitation and hygiene conditions are being further eroded in Gaza, with infectious diseases on the rise\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Fran\u00e7ais 30 July 2024 Press briefing Audio Clip: Gazans need access to polio vaccines amid \u2018deathly cycle\u2019 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 […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":299,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[2445,2377,2565],"document-source":[2105,2633,2009,2529],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1769,1945,2265,6872,2005,2533,1745],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[6542,6541],"class_list":["post-299400","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","document-category-audio","document-category-multimedia","document-category-press-briefing","document-source-united-nations-childrens-fund-unicef","document-source-united-nations-information-service-at-geneva","document-source-united-nations-office-at-geneva-unog","document-source-world-health-organization-who","document-subject-armed-conflict","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-ceasefire","document-subject-disease","document-subject-gaza-strip","document-subject-health","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-english","document-language-french"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/299400","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/299"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/299400\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":299499,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/299400\/revisions\/299499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=299400"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=299400"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=299400"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=299400"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=299400"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=299400"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=299400"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=299400"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}