The Ministry of Health, with support from partners launched the house to house polio National Immunization Days (NIDs) on Friday, 22nd of April, 2016 to vaccinate under five (0 – 59 months of age) children at national level. More than two years have passed since the onset of paralysis of the last case of WPV in January 05, 2014 and Ethiopia is currently polio free and this continued effort is to re-enforce country’s polio free status.

The current polio vaccination has been given to ensure that all children are vaccinated with the trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (tOPV), which will be the last, before switching to bivalent oral poliovirus vaccine (bOPV). In Ethiopia, tOPV will be fully withdrawn by April 30, 2016 and as of May 1, 2016 bOPV will be instituted.

Intensified social mobilization conducted by using different channels including Radio and TV, town criers, mobile text message and by passing message to the community through religious leaders as well as IEC materials prepared for the campaign.

WHO has supported the TOT training for health workers and supervisors; and also finalized the preparation for the implementation of independent monitoring (IM); which would be started in the mid of the campaign. Surveillance for acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) has been strengthened since the start of the outbreak and 78% of zones achieved 2 key surveillance indicators in 2015 compared to 60% in 2013 and 74% in 2014.

For more information, please contact

Dr. Thomas Karengera
Immunization Officer
email: karengerat [at] who.int 

or 

Selamawit Yilma
EPI Communication Officer
email:  yilmas [at] who.int