Huambo is Angola’s second biggest city and the province with the largest urban population after Luanda province.

It is also one of the eleven Angolan provinces currently with confirmed local transmission of Yellow Fever cases.  The urban nature of this outbreak and its spread to countries like DRC, Congo, Kenya and China, is of major global concern.

The vaccination campaign in the province of Huambo (five municipalities) started on 12th April 2016 and ended on 31st May 2016. In two phases of 10 days each, a total of 1,170 683 people have been vaccinated with the support of the World Health Organization. To date, 10,5million people out of targeted 13,3 million countrywide have been vaccinated.

Huambo borders Kwanza Sul, Bie, Huila and Benguela provinces, to where the yellow fever vaccination campaign has also extended. The outbreak is the worst that Angola has known in more than two decades.

Vaccination is the most important means of preventing yellow fever. Protection against getting bitten by mosquitoes and destroying breeding grounds of the Aedes mosquitos that transmits yellow fever, are also key strategies in the fight against yellow fever.

Community-led engagement is at the heart of the fight to contain the outbreak and stop its continued spread in and beyond Angola. Here WHO and NGO partner Population Services International (PSI) are training volunteer social mobilizers who go door to door in communities to encourage people to get vaccinated, listen and respond to questions in the community and offer strategies on how people can protect themselves and their loved ones.