Large-scale polio vaccination campaign begins in Gaza

A large-scale campaign to vaccinate hundreds of thousands of children against polio in the Gaza Strip launched Sunday. The three-day campaign hopes to prevent an outbreak of the virus – which was recently reported in the territory for the first time in 25 years.

Palestinian health authorities and United Nations agencies plan to vaccinate children in central Gaza until Wednesday before moving on to the more devastated northern and southern parts of the strip.

The campaign began with a small number of vaccinations on Saturday and aims to reach about 640,000 children.