13 May – Ramallah - On Monday 16 May, the Palestinian Ministry of Health will launch round one of a polio vaccination campaign targeting all children under age five in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. The vaccination campaign is scheduled to run over three days: Monday 16 May through Wednesday 18 May 2022. Vaccination, using bivalent oral polio vaccine...

More than 150 000 children under the age of five across Djibouti are targeted to receive a second dose of polio vaccine, following the first supplementary dose given in round one of the campaign in February 2022 Djibouti – 27 March 2022: The second round of the national polio immunization campaign, led by the government through the Ministry of Health...

Pariva Hashemi talks about her journey as part of Islamic Republic of Iran’s national polio programme 8 March 2022 – It was 1991 and Pariva Hashemi had just started working for the health centre of Semnan province in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Her day started at the break of dawn and sometimes ended late into the night. She spent hours...

Djibouti, 27 February 2022 - Djibouti’s Ministry of Health, with technical support from WHO and UNICEF, today kicked off a five-day national polio vaccination campaign aiming to reach all children in Djibouti aged zero to 59 months, approximately 150,000 children. Multi-disciplinary teams of vaccinators, social mobilizers and technical experts...

Members issue two statements on Yemen and Afghanistan calling for uninterrupted access for vaccinations to all children  Cairo, 10 February 2022 – The fourth meeting of the Regional Subcommittee on Polio Eradication and Outbreaks was convened on Wednesday 9 February, by WHO’s Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari....

Statement by the Eastern Mediterranean Ministerial Regional Subcommittee on Polio Eradication and Outbreaks Delivering on a promise: achieving and sustaining a polio-free Eastern Mediterranean Region Fourth Meeting of the Regional Subcommittee on Polio Eradication and Outbreaks 9 February, 2022 – Noting the progress achieved globally in...

As we begin 2022, we have our best opportunity to end polio for good Statement by George Laryea-Adjei and Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari In June last year, we visited Pakistan, one of two countries in which wild poliovirus is still endemic. Together, we returned to the country in November to witness the impressive progress in Pakistan’s polio programme and...

KABUL, 13 December 2021 - The fourth round of a national polio immunization campaign begins this week (13–16 December 2021), and will be synchronized with Pakistan to improve cross-border polio eradication efforts. The campaign targets 9.9 million children aged 0–59 months across the country and is scheduled to start later this month in some...

WHO Regional Director, Dr Ahmed Al-Mandhari, observes polio vaccination in Karachi UNICEF and WHO Regional Directors visit the polio-endemic country as efforts to eradicate polio yield crucial progress ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, 13 December 2021 – UNICEF Regional Director for South Asia, Mr George Laryea-Adjei, and WHO Regional Director for the Eastern...

Rolling out this powerful supplementary surveillance tool to more of the country has enhanced capacity in Sudan to detect and respond to poliovirus. 30 November 2021 – Until last year, environmental surveillance for polioviruses in Sudan was confined to Khartoum State, the country’s capital. In the context of a circulating vaccine-derived...