In November 2016, with the generous support of the Government of Japan, WHO conducted capacity-building activities for 1416 vaccinators from 13 governorates in Syria to maintain the quality of vaccination activities at all levels of service delivery.
The training took place during the lead-up to a national multi-antigens campaign from 20 to 24 November 2016 to improve immunity against vaccine preventable diseases among children who were unimmunized or only partially vaccinated through the routine immunization programme. Special focus was placed on reaching children in hard-to-reach and besieged areas born since the beginning of the crisis. Almost 400 000 children in 13 governorates were successfully vaccinated during the campaign.
Prior the crisis, Syria’s Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI) was one of the best in the Region. The coverage rate of the oral polio vaccine third dose was more than 90% until 2010, declining sharply to 68% in 2012 as a result of the crisis.
