Uganda launches nationwide door to door polio immunization exercise

Uganda's ministry of health on Thursday announced a nationwide door to door polio immunization exercise to avoid the potential spread from neighboring countries.

Sarah Opendi, minister of state for primary health care told reporters here that the three day exercise which starts on Jan. 17 targets some 7.5 million children below the age of five years in the 112 districts in the country.

She said the vaccination teams will move house to house, markets, streets, places of worship or wherever vaccinating all children in the target age group with one dose of trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (Topv).

Special arrangements have been made for the island areas, where the vaccinations teams will be dispatched on motor boats.

"During the exercise, all children under 5 years of age whether previously immunized or not, will be given oral polio vaccine drops in the mouth," said Opendi.

"The reason behind the house to house campaign is due to the fact that there may be no one available at home to take the children to the vaccination posts and in some instances, there may be lack of interests or motivation to have children vaccinated," she said.

She said experience in many countries has shown that house to house campaigns are 20 percent more successful compared to fixed site strategies.

Uganda was certified polio free in October 2006 by World Health Organization after ten years of not reporting any indigenous polio cases. However, with polio cases being reported by the neighboring countries and the porous nature of the East African country's borders, which enables free movement of people amongst countries, it remains at high risk of importing the polio virus.

Uganda experienced outbreaks of the polio virus in February 2009 and October 2010 imported from South Sudan and Kenya respectively.

In 2013 and early 2014, polio cases were detected and reported in Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya.

"Due to this threat, there is need to scale up our polio immunization coverage and build up immunity to a level which interrupts the transmission of the polio virus in Uganda," said Opendi.

The minister announced that children below the age of five years in the selected 41 high risk districts, mainly those at the border and the capital, Kampala will be immunized with the second dose of trivalent Oral Polio vaccine.

"We shall also use this opportunity to sensitize communities on acute flaccid paralysis surveillance and at the same time identify and investigate any unreported suspected cases of polio," she said.

The house to house polio immunization exercise does not replace the routine immunization services at the health facilities and outreach posts, according to the ministry.

Vaccination is one of the key strategies that Uganda's ministry of health is implementing in its roadmap for the attainment of the Millennium Development Goal Four, to reduce child mortality by two thirds by 2015. Endi