Syrians to Lose WFP Food Assistance in January

Bulent Kilic, AFP | A Syrian Kurdish woman crosses the border between Syria and Türkiye on September 23.
Bulent Kilic, AFP | A Syrian Kurdish woman crosses the border between Syria and Türkiye on September 23.
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Syrians to Lose WFP Food Assistance in January

Bulent Kilic, AFP | A Syrian Kurdish woman crosses the border between Syria and Türkiye on September 23.
Bulent Kilic, AFP | A Syrian Kurdish woman crosses the border between Syria and Türkiye on September 23.

Food assistance across Syria will end in January due to a funding crunch that had already curtailed its aid program in the war devastated country, the World Food Program (WFP)said on Monday.
The organization said a record level of humanitarian needs globally meant its donors are unable to provide the same level of support, Reuters said.
In September, WFP officials had warned that it required $134 million to provide food assistance for the next six months to combat hunger and malnutrition in 3.2 million people in Syria. In previous years, the organization had fed 5.5 million.
The UN food body says over 12 million Syrians were in the grip of hunger in a country that had already significantly cut aid in recent years.
The WFP however said it would continue to support families affected by natural disasters through smaller programs alongside maintaining some child nutrition and livelihood support schemes for farmers.
Over the last 10 years, WFP said it had spent $3 billion on delivering 4.8 million metric tons of food and over $300 million in cash-based assistance and $800 million in goods and services.



WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
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WHO Sends Over 1 Mln Polio Vaccines to Gaza to Protect Children 

Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)
Displaced Palestinians, who fled their houses due to Israeli strikes, look out from a window as they take shelter, amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and Hamas, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, July 24, 2024. (Reuters)

The World Health Organization is sending more than one million polio vaccines to Gaza to be administered over the coming weeks to prevent children being infected after the virus was detected in sewage samples, its chief said on Friday.

"While no cases of polio have been recorded yet, without immediate action, it is just a matter of time before it reaches the thousands of children who have been left unprotected," Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in an opinion piece in Britain's The Guardian newspaper.

He wrote that children under five were most at risk from the viral disease, and especially infants under two since normal vaccination campaigns have been disrupted by more than nine months of conflict.

Poliomyelitis, which is spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, is a highly infectious virus that can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. Cases of polio have declined by 99% worldwide since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns and efforts continue to eradicate it completely.

Israel's military said on Sunday it would start offering the polio vaccine to soldiers serving in the Gaza Strip after remnants of the virus were found in test samples in the enclave.

Besides polio, the UN reported last week a widespread increase in cases of Hepatitis A, dysentery and gastroenteritis as sanitary conditions deteriorate in Gaza, with sewage spilling into the streets near some camps for displaced people.