The Ministry of Health has today launched the second round of the Polio Vaccination campaign in 49 districts.
This campaign, set to run for four days from November 7 to 10, 2024, will involve health workers visiting homes to vaccinate children in the Busoga, Bugisu, Bukedi, Teso, Sebei, and Karamoja regions.
In this exercise, every child will receive two drops of the polio vaccine to protect them for life.
Over 8.7 million children aged zero to five years are targeted in this nationwide door-to-door campaign, which began in November 2022 as part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Rotary International, and other partners.
Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that mainly affects children under five years of age. According to WHO, the virus is transmitted via the fecal-oral route and by aerosol droplets.