Connect with us

Health

Tanzania launches polio jab campaign

Tanzania launches polio jab campaign

 


The Ministry of Health yesterday launched a second round of wild polio vaccination with the goal of reaching 10,576,805 children under the age of five.

The supplemental herd immunity campaign will take place in all 195 districts nationwide from May 18-21, 2022.

“The polio vaccination program is important for Tanzania in ensuring that all eligible children are vaccinated against polio … We are important to keep Tanzania free of polio. We thank the World Polio Eradication Initiative and Donors for funding these activities, “he said. Zabulon Yoti, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Tanzania.

WHO in Tanzania is working with UNICEF and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to provide technical support and coordination for immunization campaigns.

The first round of the campaign from March 24th to 27th attracted more than one million children in four border areas with Malawi: Mbeya, Nujeongbe, Ruvuma and Songwe.

Tanzania was certified as polio in 2015 after years of new polio cases, despite a sensitive polio monitoring system. “Immune all children is the most effective way to prevent the development of polio.

Tanzania has not detected cases of polio since 1996 due to the high prevalence of oral polio vaccines. “

It was also the first case in Africa since it was confirmed in 2020 that the area was free of indigenous wild poliovirus.

Africa’s certification for the absence of wild polio has not changed. After the outbreak, Malawi’s neighbors launched a mass vaccination drive to protect millions of children from the virus.

In addition to supporting vaccination campaigns, WHO has expanded its support for polio eradication by expanding polio environmental surveillance. Prior to this expanded environmental surveillance of polio in Tanzania, it was conducted at four sites in Dar es Salaam, but now nine new potential areas have been verified by experts and are readily reachable.

Surveillance activities in Tanzania are part of the overall environmental surveillance of the African continent, originally planned to be carried out in 46 countries with the support of the Global Polio Eradication Program.