More than 150 000 children under the age of five across Djibouti are targeted to receive a second dose of polio vaccine, following the first supplementary dose given in round one of the campaign in February 2022
Djibouti – 27 March 2022: The second round of the national polio immunization campaign, led by the government through the Ministry of Health in collaboration with UNICEF and WHO, begins Sunday 27 March, running for five days until Thursday 31 March. The campaign aims to reach and immunize more than 150 000 children aged 0 to 5 years across the country.
Poliovirus is highly contagious and can lead to paralysis and lifelong disability or death. Although Djibouti was declared polio-free in 2002, there are outbreaks of vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 in other countries in the region, which underscores the risk to all children in the Horn of Africa. By carrying out this campaign, Djibouti’s Ministry of Health is protecting all children within its borders from this disease.
In the first round of the campaign, which took place between 27 February and 3 March 2022, 153 338 children under the age of five were vaccinated against polio.
