Following the discovery of the virus in sewage samples, the World Health Organization announced on Friday that it is sending over a million polio vaccines to Gaza to be given out over the next few weeks in an effort to protect children from contracting the disease.

“Even though there are currently no confirmed cases of polio, it is only a matter of time until the disease infects the thousands of children who have not received protection,” Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus stated in an editorial article published in the British newspaper The Guardian.

He stated that since the almost nine months of fighting had interrupted regular immunization campaigns, children under the age of five were particularly vulnerable to the viral sickness.

Paralysis can result from the highly contagious virus poliomyelitis, which mostly spreads through the fecal-oral route. Thanks to widespread vaccination campaigns, the number of cases of polio has decreased by 99 percent globally since 1988, and efforts are still underway to eradicate it entirely.

Following the discovery of virus remains in test samples taken in the enclave, the Israeli military announced on Sunday that it will begin providing the polio vaccine to soldiers stationed in the Gaza Strip.