New Vaccine Drive Aims to Protect 16mln Children from Polio
ADDIS ABABA – Ethiopia is carrying out the second-round polio campaign with type 2 novel oral polio vaccine (nOPV2) .
The vaccine drive launched Friday aims to protect over 16 million under-five children from disability and death attributed to the ongoing polio outbreak in the country.
The ongoing campaign is being conducted in all regions except Tigray, Addis Ababa and Afar.
The later, which carried out the first-round campaign in early April, will need to adhere to the four-week interval between the first and second doses to the vaccine.
The campaign is led and coordinated by the Ethiopian Public Health Institute, and the emergency operation centres (EOCs) at all levels with support from partners.
The nOPV2 vaccine is a new tool approved through an Emergency Use Listing (EUL) procedure, replacing the monovalent type 2 oral poliovirus (mOPV2) vaccine, as pet the World Health Organization (WHO).
“This new vaccine has been introduced in the African Region to ensure, with other polio vaccines, that all forms of polio are eradicated so that children living in areas with low immunization coverage will be adequately protected against polio infection and subsequent paralysis,” said Dr. Boureima Hama Sambo, WHO Representative in Ethiopia.
Featured Image caption: Health authorities are
Implementing the campaign with support of partners including WHO, UNICEF, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. [Photo WHO/Selamawit Yilma]
