How many unique children were targeted vs. reached in Gaza polio campaigns 2024–2025?
Executive summary
The available reporting does not provide a single, de-duplicated count of "unique" children targeted and vaccinated across all Gaza polio activities in 2024–2025; instead, agencies published target estimates and per‑round vaccination totals that must be read together and with caution [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Combining those sources gives a consistent operational picture: planners aimed at roughly 590,000–640,000 children under 10, while individual rounds recorded roughly 559,000, 556,774 and ~603,000 vaccine doses administered — but none of the sources state how many distinct children were reached once duplicate dosing across rounds is removed [2] [3] [4] [5].
1. What planners said they were targeting
International agencies and partners described the emergency response as aiming to vaccinate roughly six hundred thousand children under ten in Gaza. WHO announced a campaign intending to vaccinate 640,000 children when the operation began in September 2024 (the figure is cited in WHO reporting on the campaign rollout) [1]. UNICEF and WHO press material around the February 2025 round described the target for that mass campaign as "over 591,000" children under 10, and Save the Children used a similar planning figure of "over 590,000" for the third round [2] [6] [7]. Those variations reflect operational planning updates driven by movement and access realities rather than contradictory science.
2. What was reported as reached — round by round
Agencies reported high per‑round coverage but published totals by round rather than a single unique-child tally. For the first round (September 1–12, 2024) WHO reported about 558,963 children vaccinated (commonly rounded in reporting to around 560,000) [3] [8]. The second round concluded in November 2024 with WHO/UNICEF reporting 556,774 children vaccinated with a second dose and 448,425 receiving vitamin A in the three phases — while noting 7,000–10,000 children in inaccessible areas remained unvaccinated [4] [9]. Following a ceasefire and improved access, a February 2025 five‑day mass campaign reached nearly 603,000 children with nOPV2, an increase of roughly 40,000 over earlier rounds [5] [10] [11].
3. Why the "unique children" figure cannot be read cleanly from public briefings
None of the cited WHO, UNICEF, GPEI or NGO releases provide a de‑duplicated count of unique individuals vaccinated across multiple rounds; they report doses administered and round totals [3] [4] [5]. Emergency responses intentionally deliver multiple doses to the same child to build immunity, and monitoring commonly records per‑round coverage and percent of the target reached rather than tracking a single unique-child denominator across rounds [12] [9]. Therefore, summing round totals would overcount unique children, while accepting a single campaign target (e.g., 591,000–640,000) does not prove every child on that list was actually reached once, let alone once only [2] [1].
4. Best-supported conclusion from available reporting
Operational targets across the reporting lie in the range of approximately 590,000 to 640,000 children under ten [1] [2] [6]. Per‑round achievements reported by WHO/UNICEF/partners show roughly 559,000 vaccinated in the September round, about 556,774 in the subsequent round, and nearly 603,000 in the February 2025 campaign after expanded access [3] [4] [5]. The reports do not provide a reliable de‑duplicated "unique children reached" figure; therefore the only defensible statement is that the campaigns consistently reached very high proportions of the operational targets in each round (often above 95% of the stated targets for that round), while an estimated 7,000–10,000 children in some north Gaza localities remained inaccessible after the second round [12] [4] [9].
5. Implications and uncertainties worth flagging
High per‑round coverage is promising for outbreak control, but lingering environmental detections and pockets of inaccessible children meant authorities called for additional rounds to close immunity gaps [9] [5]. Reporting biases and operational realities — shifting population movements, different denominators used by agencies, and multiple doses given per child — prevent precise calculation of unique children vaccinated across all campaigns from the public statements examined [1] [3] [5]. If a truly de‑duplicated count is required, it would need internal campaign monitoring datasets or ministry records that these public releases do not publish (none of the supplied sources provide such a dataset) [9] [4].