Massive polio immunization campaign protects Yemen’s children

4.1 million children vaccinated

The Polio Campaign kicks off in a ceremony led by HEs the Vice President and the Minister of Public Health & Population.

Social mobilization and community involvement are essential components in Polio Eradication Program
The most recent Polio National Immunization Campaign was conducted from 15 to 17 December 2007. The campaign was organized as a preventive measure in all 333 districts of the 22 governorates. As in the past, there was also a House to House (HtH) campaign with the overall objective to achieve a vaccination coverage rate of about 90 people per governorate. Preparation for the campaign started with training the vaccinators, records keepers and supervisors, followed by logistic readiness and social mobilization activities. Over 30,000 health care workers, volunteers and community health workers were involved in the campaign. They made up about 20,137 vaccination teams and 4,228 supervisors which covered 4,171,379 children under the age of five living in 2,528,668 households. Effective inter-departmental cooperation including governmental, non-governmental and civil society organizations, combined with successful social mobilization, resulted in a successful campaign with a high coverage rate. 

The World Health Organization’s (WHO) role in the campaign included training the vaccinators, supervising and monitoring the activities and revising the campaign micro plan. It also assigned and trained 75 independent monitors, who were selected from medical colleges in Sana’a, Aden, Dhamar, Al-Mukalla and Taiz to independently monitor the immunization activities. In addition to this, all UN agencies in Yemen also participated in monitoring the process.

Overall, the campaign achieved a final vaccination coverage rate of between 95.5% (Independent Monitors data) and 96.0% (National Expanded Program on Immunization data) of children less than five years old. 

There is no cure for Polio - it can only be prevented through Immunization
  Some of the important features of the December 2007 campaign were:
1. The campaign was successfully conducted with a vaccination coverage rate of 95.2% (Independent Monitors data) which is the best and highest coverage amongst all 2006 & 2007 campaigns;
2. There was a significant decrease in the percentage of the refusal of vaccination due to successful social mobilization inter-departmental cooperation;
3. A strong participation by women in the campaign made the exercise more successful;
4. High political commitment at a central and governorate level. Yemen started the National Surveillance System for Polio in 1998 and it has shown rapid progress during the past three years. In 2006 it achieved the target of a non-Polio rate (more than 2,100,000 children under 15 years). There is a high level of awareness and an intimate relationship of cooperation between the clinical side and the surveillance side of the program. It is encouraging to see that all the health workers, especially senior pediatricians, are supportive and well-informed as well as involved in the program and have also expressed their readiness to provide all the facilities to ensure the improvement and sustainability of the surveillance activities.

A WHO Representative for Yemen monitors the campaign in a rural area in Hajjah.

Presently, the Yemen Ministry of Health and Population is compiling evidence based on documents of the WHO’s East Mediterranean Region with the purpose to officially state that Yemen is polio free.  

Polio
Poliomyelitis, or polio, is a crippling disease caused by the polio virus which mainly affects young children. The virus is transmitted through contaminated food and water and multiplies in the intestine from where it can invade the nervous system. Many infected people show no symptoms but excrete the virus in their feces and then transmit the infection to others. The polio vaccine, given multiple times, almost always protects a child for life. Full immunization will markedly reduce an individual’s risk of developing paralytic polio. 

In 1998, the World Health Assembly (WHA), a meeting of the ministers of health of all member states of the WHO, voted to launch a Global Polio Eradication Initiative with the objective to:
1. Interrupt the transmission of the polio virus as soon as possible;
2. Achieve the certification of global polio eradication;
3. Strengthen routine immunization and surveillance for communicable diseases in a systematic way.

Overall, in the 17 years since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched, tremendous progress has been made as the number of polio cases worldwide has decreased from 350,000 in 1998, to under 700 cases in 2003. In 2006 only four countries in the world remained the site of a polio endemic, down from more than 125 in 1988. Three-quarters of all global cases are linked to a handful of polio “hot spots” in Nigeria, Pakistan and India. 

Women play an important role by helping with the immunization activities of the campaign.

As long as a single child remains infected with the polio virus, children in all countries are at risk of contracting the disease. The poliovirus can easily be imported into a polio-free country and can spread rapidly amongst non-immunized populations. Between 2003 and 2005 25 previously polio free countries were re-infected. The Republic of Yemen experienced a particularly devastating epidemic, with a total of 479 laboratory-confirmed cases of paralytic poliomyelitis; the most recent case was recorded on the 2nd of February 2006. In order to curb this outbreak six rounds of HtH campaigns were conducted in 2005 and three in 2006. Two additional rounds were conducted in April and December 2007. The campaigns were supported by the WHO and other concerned partners in addition to big contributions by the Yemeni Government which is strongly committed to stopping the transmission of the polio virus. Before this outbreak, no cases of the wild polio virus had been reported in Yemen since 1998. Recently, there have been considerable developments in the Polio Eradication in the Republic of Yemen.  Routine Immunization, which is mandatory since 1979, has increased, reaching a coverage rate of 85% in 2006.  Although the transmission of the poliomyelitis virus has apparently been interrupted in Yemen, continued attention and vigilance is needed. Major population and cross-border movement of refugees from neighboring countries could re-introduce the virus to Yemen.

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