Featured Stories
Mozambique ran the third round of a polio outbreak response campaign July 7-10. The 65,000-worker effort sent vaccinators door to door and to crowded areas (including daycare centers, markets, churches and hospitals) to reach about 7 million children under age 5. The national campaign is part of a regional four-round vaccination drive launched earlier this year in response to a wild poliovirus outbreak in Malawi (Mozambique later declared its own outbreak after a case surfaced). Overall, the regional effort aims to administer over 80 million bivalent oral polio vaccine (bOPV) doses to more than 23 million children across five countries (Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe). In Tanzania, vaccinators are gathering data with Open Data Kit (ODK) mobile tools to help inform and implement upcoming phases. Malawi, Tanzania and Zambia are set to embark shortly on the third phases of their campaigns. All Africa; Xinhua; WHO; WHO
Kenya and Tanzania ran a cross-border mass drug administration exercise against trachoma July 12-16. The campaign aimed to administer antibiotics to over 1.3 million people in the pastoral Maa community living across the two East African countries. In Kenya, 576,091 people in Narok county and 358,574 people in Kajiado county were targeted. Meanwhile, 228,360 and 161,367 people were targeted in the Tanzanian counties of Ngorongoro and Longido, respectively. Kenyan Ministry of Health press release
Outbreak Response
Kenya kicked off a 10-day yellow fever vaccination campaign on July 23. A response to a 10-county outbreak confirmed earlier in the year, the effort targets 711,300 people ages 9 months to 60 years in Isiolo county (Merti and Garbatula sub-counties) and Garissa county (Balambala, Garissa and Lagdera sub-counties). Kenya Ministry of Health
Afghanistan launched a three-day polio vaccination campaign on July 25. Targeting 6.7 million children under age 5, the initiative encompasses 248 districts in the southern, southeastern, eastern, northern, western and central provinces, as well as in provinces and districts where campaigns aren’t feasible during winter. To date, the country has launched six rounds of nationwide polio campaigns this year. Ariana News
Zimbabwe has vaccinated 72,044 children against measles in its Mutasa district in an outbreak response campaign dating to mid-May. The campaign has an overall target of 74,604 children ages 6 months to 15 years (regardless of vaccination status), and the health ministry has also announced an intensive door-to-door education campaign about measles. Manica Post; H. Metro; IFRC
Pakistan launched a vaccination campaign against measles July 19 in the Dera Ismail Khan district following reports of an outbreak in about a dozen children. The effort went house to house and vaccinated all targeted children in the Qayyum Nagar area of Malana union council. UrduPoint
Local Campaigns
Pakistan ran its second Sub-National Immunization Days (SNIDs) campaign of 2022 from June 27-July 1. The initiative reached over 12.3 million children under 5 in 68 districts across all four provinces. During the subnational effort, 100,000 Sehat Muhafiz healthcare workers went house to house to administer polio vaccines. On the second day of the drive, unidentified militants killed one member of a vaccination team in the North Waziristan district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. Government of Pakistan press release; Al Jazeera; EFE
Nigeria’s Kano state kicked off a series of seasonal malaria chemoprevention campaigns on July 5. Set to run in four cycles of four days each from July to October, the exercise targets over 12 million children ages 3 months to 59 months across the state’s 44 Local Government Areas. Kano also plans to distribute over 8 million long-lasting insecticide-treated nets between July and September. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s Kaduna state distributed over 5.4 million treated nets through a door-to-door campaign July 7-18. Kano and Kaduna are among eight Nigerian states (including Anambra, Delta, Katsina, Niger, Taraba and Yobe) aiming to hand out a combined 34.8 million nets under a Global Fund-backed initiative. TNG; All Africa; Blueprint