Khartoum, December 28(Darfur24)Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health in Sudan, in cooperation with the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, will launch Thursday a compensatory vaccination campaign to immunize children against polio and yellow fever
The immunization campaign will kick off on December 29, 2022 and continue until January 3, 2023.
According to UNICEF’s statement today, this campaign will cover the states of Darfur and Sennar as part of efforts to increase vaccination coverage and increase equitable access to vaccines across Sudan by seeking coverage for the cohort of newborns who missed a dose of routine polio vaccine.
For this reason, the main target of this campaign will be children between 5 and 7 years old.The remedial campaign has been in the making for several months, but also follows the confirmation of cVDPV2 infection on 16 December 2022 in a four-year-old boy in Kirinik locality in West Darfur, Sudan.
“This campaign comes at a critical time as Sudan prepares to boost immunity against the recently declared poliovirus outbreak,” said Dr. Nima Said Abid, WHO Representative in Sudan. I invite parents and guardians to make sure that children receive the vaccine in this local round. Together, we have eradicated polio outbreaks before – testifying to the dedication and skill of Sudan’s health workers and the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Health – and we can do it again.”
In August 2022, Sudan succeeded in ending the outbreak of the poliovirus, which appeared in 2020 and infected 58 children in 15 out of 18 states in Sudan.
The Federal Ministry of Health, with the support of UNICEF and the World Health Organization, succeeded in organizing two nationwide vaccination campaigns targeting children under five years of age to contain the spread of the poliovirus, reaching more than 95 percent of the target population.
Community participation and social mobilization efforts have also been intensified to ensure that information about the risks of the disease and the need to vaccinate every eligible child in every household reaches.
The country also vaccinated children for the first time while camping in Oulu locality in the Blue Nile and Jebel Marra regions, and improved surveillance for acute flaccid paralysis by expanding environmental monitoring to 14 additional sites in six states.
Immunization saves lives, it protects children and their communities, and future generations by eliminating diseases.
“Polio is a highly contagious and incurable disease that particularly affects young children,” said Mandip O’Brien, UNICEF Representative in Sudan. Infection with it leads to paralysis and in some cases death. Vaccination is the best way to protect children from this scourge, and we urge all parents to ensure that their children receive polio and all other routine vaccinations so that they are protected from diseases. Any child who is not fully vaccinated is at risk of contracting polio, and UNICEF will support partners and communities to get life-saving vaccines to all children.”
The last case of polio (wild polio) reported in Sudan was in March 2009, and in 2015 the World Health Organization declared the country free of polio. However, it was considered to be at high risk of importing polioviruses for several years due to the low level of immunity in the population.