Ethiopia said Thursday about 1.1 million children under the age of five in 15 zones of Somali, Afar and Oromia regions will be vaccinated against polio during a four-day polio immunization campaign, to be conducted from this coming Friday to next Monday.

To achieve very high coverage, the campaign will be conducted using house-to-house strategy, Ethiopia's Ministry of Health said in a news release.

The zones to be covered during the house-to-house campaign are Shinile, Jijiga, Fik, Degehabur, Warder, Kebridehar, Gode, Afder and Liben in Somali state; Bale, East and West Harerghe in Oromia state; zone 1, 2 and 3 of Afar state.

These areas were carefully chosen for the campaign because of the recently identified wild polio virus case at East Harerghe zone of Oromia and Warder zone of Somali states.

More than 71,000 vials of monovalent oral polio vaccine and 118,000 tally sheets and different reporting forms have been dispatched to the three regions for use during the campaign.

The highly effective monovalent vaccine is the most effective vaccine available to protect against the wild poliovirus, currently circulating in the country. Thus, all children less than five years of age in the identified high risk zones should receive two drops of the vaccine during the campaign regardless of their immunization status.

As of February this year, a total of 25 polio cases have been confirmed in Ethiopia. Ethiopia was free from polio for almost four years (January 2001-December 2004). The most recent cases were identified in East Harerghe Zone of Oromia Region and Wag Himera Zone of the Amhara Region on December 6, 2005 and February 1, 2006, respectively.

The current house-to-house polio immunization campaign is being conducted to contain and interrupt further transmission of the wild poliovirus, said the press release.

Source: Xinhua