Following directives from the governemnt, the IDF began coordinating with UN officials on restarting the polio vaccination campaign in Gaza on Monday.
IDF officers from the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) met with UN officials to summarize and coordinate the vaccination campaign.
The campaign will have three major areas of focus and will cooperate with international organizations to provide the hundreds of thousands of vaccines needed.
The first three days will focus on the central Gaza Strip, then after a two-day pause, the campaign will resume in southern Gaza, followed by pausing for one day, before resuming for three more days in northern Gaza.
All vaccinations will be given between 6:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. and all pauses will be used to reassess the needs of the population.
Vaccination campaign
The IDF emphasized that all vaccination campaigns will be done in coordination with the IDF, in order to allow civilians to safely pass to medical centers where there will be vaccinations.
COGAT prepared a campaign with international organizations, which included joint situation assessments.
They coordinated the entry of vaccines, associated medical and logistical equipment, and refrigeration equipment for storing and transporting the vaccines; the entry of vitamins essential for the needs of the campaign; the entry of polio specialists into the Gaza Strip; demarcating the vaccination zones in the operational systems; and more.
Since the beginning of the war, 341,826 vials of polio vaccine, for 4,703,260 vaccines, entered Gaza via the Kerem Shalom crossing, according to the IDF. In addition, 16,350 vials intended for 163,500 doses entered Gaza on October 9.
The World Health Organization said that following the campaign, about 90% of the Gaza Strip's population will have been vaccinated against polio.
The IDF stressed that it had been permitting and facilitating the entry of medical and humanitarian aid into Gaza, saying that over 50,000 trucks entered the territory since the beginning of the war, containing over a million tons of humanitarian aid, over 820,000 tons of food, and nearly 27,000 tons of medical aid.