Ukraine first reported an outbreak of circulating vaccine derived poliovirus in September 2015, and now the nation has launched a vaccination campaign with the oral polio vaccine.
The World Health Organization (WHO) congratulated the Ministry of Health on the campaign, which is required by international guidelines within the comprehensive outbreak response.
The campaign’s first phase targets 2.85 million children who are less than 6 years old. There will be another two phases, one for 4.75 million children less than 10 years old. The latter phases will be conducted at monthly intervals. All of the children within the age groups will receive the vaccine for free.
With the announcement of polio in September 2015, this is the first time that the European region has had a polio outbreak since 2010. The Ministry of Health confirmed that polio caused two children, one 10 months old and the other 4 months old, to be paralyzed.
“With the campaign now under way, we call on health care providers and parents in Ukraine to exercise their right and responsibility to vaccinate all children in the designated age groups urgently to stop transmission of this dreaded virus,” Zsuzsanna Jakab, WHO’s regional director for Europe, said.
