WHO hopes to start Gaza polio vaccination second round on Oct 14

The World Health Organization said on Friday it hopes to give hundreds of thousands of children in war-stricken Gaza, where diseases are spreading rapidly, a second dose of polio vaccine from 14 October.

The WHO said it was in talks on the date with Israel, which has been waging war in the densely-populated Gaza Strip since 7 October.

Much of the territory lies in ruins and the majority of its 2.4 million residents have been forced to flee their homes due to Israel's military assault -- often taking refuge in cramped and unsanitary conditions.

"We have requested the start of the second round of the polio campaign on October 14... and we expect that the vaccination should finish by the October 29," said Ayadil Saparbekov, the senior WHO official for emergencies in the Palestinian territories.

In August, Gaza reported its first confirmed case of polio in 25 years.

In a bid to prevent an epidemic of the highly infectious viral disease, the United Nations' health agency launched a mass vaccination campaign effort in the territory on September 1, aiming to administer an initial oral dose of vaccine to more than 640,000 children under 10.

Discussions on providing the second dose in October were under way with the Israeli defence and health ministries and partners on the ground in Gaza, Saparbekov said.

Two doses of vaccine must be administered four weeks apart to prevent the spread of the virus, which was detected in sewage samples in Gaza in June, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.

Fear of other cases 

A United Nations convoy carrying polio vaccination workers was held at gunpoint at an Israeli military checkpoint on September 9, shots were fired and its vehicles were rammed by a bulldozer, Stephane Dujarric, spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, said at the time.

The WHO is anxious to prevent an epidemic of variant type 2 polio virus (cVDPV2), after it was detected in a 10-month-old baby in Gaza in August.

The October 7 attack by Hamas in Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,205 people, mostly civilians and including a number of hostages, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's retaliatory offensive in Gaza has killed at least 41,802 people, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.

The UN, which says the data is reliable, says most of the dead in Gaza are women and children.