West and Central Africa unite to stop polio outbreak
19 Country Synchronized Polio Campaign
Joint GPEI / IFRC Factsheet – March 2010
Since the second half of 2008, a polio outbreak originating in northern Nigeria has been spreading in West Africa. The outbreak already infected Niger in 2006, as well as Chad and Cameroon in central Africa.
A set of synchronized cross-border vaccination campaigns are to be conducted simultaneously in 19 countries. Over 400,000 volunteers and health workers will aim to immunize more than 85 million children under five years of age.
Each child under age five will receive two drops of oral polio vaccine (OPV), administered at the household’s doorstep. Vaccination teams, equipped with special carriers that ensure the vaccine remains below the required 8C, will travel on foot or bicycles, in cars and boats and on motorcycles to implement a door-to-door vaccination drive.
This strategy, started in 2008, has proven effective. A first wave of infected countries - Benin, Côte d'Ivoire, the Central African Republic, Ghana, Togo and Niger, has managed to stop the outbreak in 2009. In these countries, no cases have been notified for more than six months. In Nigeria, the only endemic country in Africa, the number of cases has collapsed in 2009, inspiring a renewed belief in a polio-free Africa.