Gender roles and norms, and their underpinning power relations, are powerful determinants of health outcomes. To reach every last child and achieve a polio-free world, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) is committed to identifying and addressing gender-related barriers to immunization and disease surveillance.
Dr Ujala Nayyar dreams, both figuratively and literally, about a world that is free from polio. Nayyar, the World Health Organization’s surveillance officer in Pakistan’s Punjab province, says she often imagines the outcome of her work in her sleep.
In her waking life, she leads a team of health workers who crisscross Punjab to hunt down every potential incidence of poliovirus, testing sewage and investigating any reports of paralysis that might be polio. Pakistan is one of just two countries that continue to report cases of polio caused by the wild virus. In addition to the challenges of polio surveillance, Nayyar faces substantial gender-related barriers that can hinder her team’s ability to count cases and take environmental samples. From households to security checkpoints, she encounters resistance from men. But her tactic is to push past the barriers with a balance of sensitivity and assertiveness.
“I’m not very polite,” Nayyar says with a chuckle. “We don’t have time to be stopped. Ending polio is urgent and time-sensitive.”
Women are critical in the fight against polio, Nayyar says. About 56% of frontline workers in Pakistan are women. More than 70% of mothers in Pakistan prefer to have women vaccinate their children.
That hasn’t stopped families from slamming doors in health workers’ faces, though. When polio is detected in a community, teams have to make repeated visits to each home to ensure that every child is protected by the vaccine. Multiple vaccinations add to the skepticism and anger that some parents express. It’s an attitude that Nayyar and other health workers deal with daily.
“You can’t react negatively in those situations. It’s important to listen. Our female workers are the best at that,” says Nayyar.
With polio on the verge of eradication, surveillance activities, which, Nayyar calls the “back of polio eradication”, have never been more important.
Q: What exactly does polio surveillance involve?
A: There are two types of surveillance systems. One is surveillance of cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), and the second is environmental surveillance. The surveillance process continues after eradication.
Q: How are you made aware of potential polio cases?
A: There’s a network of reporting sites. They include all the medical facilities, the government, and the hospitals, plus informal health care providers and community leaders. The level of awareness is so high, and our community education has worked so well, that sometimes the parents call us directly.
Q: What happens if evidence of poliovirus is found?
A: In response to cases in humans as well as viruses detected in the environment, we implement three rounds of supplementary immunization campaigns. The scope of our response depends on the epidemiology and our risk assessment.
We look at the drainage systems. Some systems are filtered, but there are also areas that have open drains. We have maps of the sewer systems. We either cover the specific drainage areas or we do an expanded response in a larger area.
Q: What are the special challenges in Pakistan?
A: We have mobile populations that are at high risk, and we have special health camps for these populations. Routine vaccination is every child’s right, but because of poverty and lack of education, many of these people are not accessing these services.
Q: How do you convince people who are skeptical about the polio vaccine?
A: We have community mobilizers who tell people about the benefits of the vaccine. We have made it this far in the program only because of these frontline workers. One issue we are facing right now is that people are tired of vaccination. If a positive environmental sample has been found in the vicinity, then we have to go back three times within a very short time period. Every month you go to their doorstep, you knock on the door. There are times when people throw garbage. It has happened to me. But we do not react. We have to tolerate their anger; we have to listen.
Q: What role does Rotary play in what you do?
A: Whenever I need anything, I call on Rotary. Umbrellas for the teams? Call Rotary. Train tickets? Call Rotary. It’s the longest-running eradication program in the history of public health, but still the support of Rotary is there.
The Endgame Plan through 2018 brought the world another year closer to being polio-free. While we had hoped to be finished by now, 2018 set the tone for the new strategic plan, building on the lessons learned and mapping out a certification strategy by 2023. 2018 was also marked by expanded efforts to reach children with vaccines, the launch of innovative tools and strategies, critical policy decisions and renewed donor commitment to the fight.
Circulation of wild poliovirus (WPV) continues in the common epidemiological block in Afghanistan and Pakistan. However, both countries steadily worked to improve the quality of their vaccination campaigns in 2018 through National Emergency Action Plans, with a particular focus on closing any immunity gaps to put the countries on track to successfully stop WPV in the near future. Given the priority on polio eradication, WHO Director General, WHO Regional Director for the Eastern Mediterranean and President, Global Development at Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation started off the new year with a four-day visit to meet the heads of state and have a first-hand experience of the on-the-ground eradication efforts in both the countries.
In August, Nigeria marked two years since detecting any WPV. With continuing improvements in access to the country’s northeast, as well as efforts to strengthen surveillance and routine immunization, the entire African region may be eligible for being certified WPV-free as early as late this year or early 2020. What’s more, the world has not detected type 3 WPV since 2012 and the strain could be certified eradicated sometime this year.
Program innovation
The programme is constantly developing new ways to more effectively track the virus, vaccinate more children and harness new tools to help end the disease for good.
In Nigeria and the surrounding region, health workers launched new tools to enable faster, more comprehensive disease surveillance. e-Surve, a smartphone app, guides officers through conversations with local health officials, offering prompts on how to identify and report suspected cases of disease. Then, with the touch of a button, responses are submitted to a central database where health officials can analyze and track outbreaks across multiple districts in real-time.
Beyond surveillance, health workers worked tirelessly to bring the polio vaccine to the remote communities of Lake Chad. Dotted with hundreds of small islands, the lake is one of the most challenging places on earth to deliver health services. Vaccinators must travel by boat on multi-day trips to deliver polio vaccines to isolated island villages, using solar-powered refrigerators to keep their precious cargo cool. In 2018, vaccination campaigns on the lake reached thousands of children for the first time – children who would otherwise have gone unprotected.
The programme also took important steps in developing new tools including, novel oral polio vaccine (nOPV), if studies show to be successful, could provide a safer form of OPV that provides the same level of protection without the small risk of vaccine-derived polio in under-immunized populations.
Battling circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus
In 2018, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Niger, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Kenya, Somalia and Mozambique experienced outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived polio (cVDPV). Although these cases are still rare – and only happen in places where immunity is low. The polio eradication initiative has two urgent tasks: eradicate WPV quickly as possible and stop the use of OPV globally, which in tandem will prevent new cVDPV strains from cropping up.
The program uses the same proven strategies for stopping wild polio in responding to cVDPV cases. These strategies, coupled with the rapid mobilization of resources on the ground, can bring outbreaks under control.
In December, an international group of public health experts determined that the 2017 cVDPV2 outbreak in Syria has been successfully stopped. This news follows 18 months of intensive vaccination and surveillance efforts led by the GPEI and local partners in conflict-affected, previously inaccessible areas. In Papua New Guinea, the programme carried out 100 days of emergency response this past summer and is continuing to vaccinate and expand surveillance across the country.
Bringing an end to ongoing cVDPV outbreaks remains an urgent priority for the program in 2019.
New policy decisions
At the World Health Assembly in May, Member States adopted a landmark resolution on poliovirus containment to help accelerate progress in this field and ensure that poliovirus materials are appropriately contained under strict biosafety and biosecurity handling and storage conditions. The programme also finalized a comprehensive Post-Certification Strategy that specifies the global, technical standards for containment, vaccination and surveillance activities that will be essential to maintaining a polio-free world in the decade following certification.
Recognizing the ongoing challenge posed by cVDPVs, the Global Commission for the Certification of Poliomyelitis Eradication (GCC) met in November and recommended an updated process for declaring the world polio-free. This plan will start with the certification of WPV3 eradication, followed by WPV1, and include a separate independent process to validate the absence of vaccine-derived polio.
Comprised of members, advisers, and invited Member States, the 19th IHR Emergency Committee met in November. The Committee unanimously agreed that poliovirus continues to be a global emergency and complacency at this stage could become the biggest hindrance. “We have the tools, we need to focus on what works, we need to get to every child,” commented Prof. Helen Rees, Chairperson of the Committee. “The reality is that there is no reason why we should not be able to finish this job, but we have to keep at it.” “We have achieved eradication of a disease once before, with smallpox,” Rees concluded. “The world is a much better place without smallpox. It’s now more urgent than ever that we redouble our efforts and finish this job once and for all as well.”
In 2018, the GPEI took major steps in adopting a more gender-responsive approach and strengthening gender mainstreaming across its interventions. The GPEI Gender Technical Brief highlighted the programme’s commitment to gender equality and included a thorough analysis of various gender-related barriers to immunization, surveillance and communication.
The programme introduced new gender-sensitive indicators to ensure that girls and boys are equally reached with polio vaccines, to track the timeliness of disease surveillance for girls and boys, and to monitor the rate of women’s participation as frontline workers in the endemic countries. The GPEI continues to regularly collect and analyze sex-disaggregated data and conduct gender analysis to further strengthen the reach and effectiveness of vaccination campaigns.
Donor countries made new financial contributions to the programme in 2018. Polio-affected countries also demonstrated continued political commitment to eradication efforts. The Democratic Republic of the Congo signed the Kinshasa Declaration committing to improve vaccination coverage rates in sixteen provinces throughout the country, and Nigeria approved a $150 million loan from the World Bank to scale up immunization services and end polio.
Looking ahead: 2019 and beyond
Over the last five years, the programme has been guided by the 2013-2018 Polio Eradication & Endgame Strategic Plan, helping to bring the world to the brink of polio eradication. This spring, the programme will finalize a new strategy –GPEI Strategic Plan 2019-2023– which will aim to sharpen the tools and tactics that led to this incredible progress. In 2019, the GPEI will also launch its first-ever Gender Strategy to further guide its gender-responsive programming and to increase women’s meaningful and equal participation at all levels of the programme.
Success in the coming years will hinge on harnessing renewed financial and political support to fully implement the plan at all levels, with our one clear goal in sight: reach every last child with the polio vaccine to end this disease once and for all. Echoing similar sentiments, Chairs of the effort’s main advisory bodies issued an extraordinary joint statement, urging all to step up their performance to end polio. 2019 may very well be the watershed year that the world will finally eradicate polio, thanks to the global expertise and experience over 3 decades.
This is southern Afghanistan. A place characterized by a rich, diverse, but often complex history. Enveloped by mountains, this part of the country has seen years of conflict which have left hospitals under-resourced and health services shattered. Children face many challenges – as well as conflict and poverty, southern Afghanistan has the highest number of polio cases in the world.
In this difficult environment, the virus can only be defeated if every child is vaccinated.
Afia (not her real name), who is nineteen years old, is one of over 70 000 committed polio workers in Afghanistan, supported by WHO and UNICEF. Last month, she and her colleagues vaccinated 9.9 million children and educated thousands of parents about vaccination across the country.
The polio eradication programme comprises one of the biggest female workforces in Afghanistan: a national team, all fighting polio. Some women work as vaccinators, whilst others, like Afia, are mostly engaged in education and social mobilisation efforts. The polio programme gives women culturally-appropriate opportunities to work outside the house and engage in their community, speaking to parents about the safe, effective polio vaccine, and answering their questions. Often, women vaccinators offer other kinds of health advice, including recommendations for good child and maternal health.
To be a good vaccinator and educator, women must be committed to better health for all, with strong communication skills. They must also be organized to ensure that every child is reached during the campaign.
Afia says that if she wasn’t eradicating polio, her parents would expect her to give up her education and get married. Her younger sisters look up to her, excited to work in the polio eradication programme when they are old enough.
Her job is very important to protect all children. Afghanistan is just one of three countries – the others are Nigeria and Pakistan - that have never interrupted poliovirus transmission.
Women can vaccinate children who might otherwise miss out. Culturally, male vaccinators are unable to enter households to administer vaccine, causing difficulties if young children are asleep or playing inside. Their freedom to enter homes and give the vaccine to every child is one reason female polio workers are so critical.
Afia started work at 7 am, and is now walking home ten hours later with a young boy she has just vaccinated. Her purple burka stands out against the sand as she goes home to tell her parents and siblings about her day.
Afia feels positive about the future of polio eradication in Afghanistan: “We have a duty to protect our children, and I won’t stop working until every child is protected.”
Women have a right to participate in all aspects of polio eradication. Removing barriers to women’s full participation at all levels is a key goal for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). To learn more, see the gender section of our website, and read the GPEI ‘Why Women’ Infographic.
Somalia, which stopped indigenous wild polio in 2002, is currently at risk of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2, after three viruses were confirmed in the sewage of Banadir province in January 2018. Although no children have been paralysed, WHO and other partners are supporting the local authorities to conduct investigations and risk assessments and to continue outbreak response and disease surveillance.
Underpinning these determined efforts to ensure that every child is vaccinated are local vaccinators and community leaders – nearly all of whom are women.
Bella Yusuf and Mama Ayesha are different personalities, in different stages of their lives, united by one goal – to keep every child in Somalia free from polio. Bella is 29, a mother of four, and a polio vaccinator for the last nine years, fitting her work around childcare and the usual hustle and bustle of family life. Mama Ayesha, whose real name is Asha Abdi Din, is a District Polio Officer. She is named Mama Ayesha for her maternal instincts, which have helped her to persevere and succeed in her pioneering work to improve maternal and child health, campaign for social and cultural change, and provide care for all.
Protecting all young children
Working as part of the December vaccination campaign, which aimed to protect over 700 000 children under five years of age, Bella explains her motivation to be a vaccinator. Taking a well-deserved break whilst supervisors from the Ministry of Health and the World Health Organization check the records of the children so far vaccinated, she looks around at the families waiting in line for drops of polio vaccine.
“I enjoy serving my people. And as a mother, it is my duty to help all children”, she says.
For Mama Ayesha too, the desire to protect Somalia’s young people is a driving force in her work. A real leader, she began her career helping to vaccinate children against smallpox, the last case of which was found in Somalia. Since then, she has personally taken up the fight against female genital mutilation, working to protect every girl-child.
She joined the polio programme in 1998, working to establish Somalia as wild poliovirus free, and ever since to oversee campaigns, and protect against virus re-introduction. In her words, “My office doesn’t close.”
Working in the midst of conflict
The work that Bella and Mama Ayesha carry out is especially critical because Somalia is at a high risk of polio infection. The country suffers from weak health infrastructure, as well as regular population displacement and conflict.
For Bella, that makes keeping children safe through vaccination even more meaningful.
“Through my job I can impact the well-being of my children,” she says. “For every child I vaccinate, I protect a lot more”.
Mama Ayesha echoes those words when she contemplates the difficulties of working in conflict. For most of her life, the historic district where she works, Hamar Weyne, has been affected by recurrent cycles of violence and shelling. With her grown children living abroad, she could easily move to a more peaceful life. But she chooses to stay.
“This is my home, and this is where I am needed. I am here for my team, and all the children.”
Looking up at a picture of her husband, who died many years ago, Mama Ayesha considers the determination and courage that drives her, Bella, and thousands of their fellow health workers to protect every since one of Somalia’s children. Behind her thick wooden desk, she is no less committed than when she began her career. “If I had to do it again it would be my pleasure.”
Bella has a similar professional attitude, combined with the care and technical skill that make her a talented vaccinator. Returning to her stand below a shady tree, she greets the mothers lined up with their children. As she carefully stains the finger of the first small child purple, showing that they have been vaccinated, she grins.
“I am the mother of all Somali children. I am just doing my job”.
Over the years, the Polio Eradication Initiative has been a vehicle for the empowerment of Nigerian women economically and socially. In recent times, this positive development has gained more impact with the timely and direct disbursement of funds for payment of vaccination personnel allowances down to grassroots level.
Over 360 000 vaccinators are engaged to support one round of national polio campaigns, and a further 180 000 for a round of sub-national campaigns. Out of these figures, over 80% are in the northern part of Nigeria where 100% of House-to-House teams are females. In addition, 100% of the supervisors are women. Further profiling of personal for all vaccination teams (including fixed post and transit point teams) indicate that 62% of the vaccinators are females. The findings also showed 88% of them have mobile phones for timely alerts and payments.
Interestingly, most of the female vaccinators are pooling their mobile money so they can have a bigger amount to kick-start their small-scale income generation projects.
“I have been able to successfully establish a business from stipends received from polio campaign and now have a source of income. I acquired a shop, bought machines and fabrics and now, I am the local tailor in my community,” Malama Amina Mohammed, a polio vaccinator team supervisor in Zamfara state mentioned.
There is considerable anecdotal evidence from WHO Nigeria Kano, Katsina and Kaduna state field offices that the huge investments by donors and partners have gone beyond polio eradication to impact positively on the lives of women, thereby enhancing equity.
Happy Gabriel is a student at Kaduna Polytechnic. She became a vaccinator three years ago after gaining admission for her diploma course. Polio programme stipends assisted her to concentrate on her studies and helped greatly to buy books and for her upkeep.
Appreciating the stipends received from SIAs, Happy stated, “I am deeply indebted to the polio immunization programme especially the initiative of Mobile money which eliminates delays we hitherto encountered at payment sites and equally engenders transparency.”
Very soon, Ms Gabriel will obtain her Ordinary National Diploma certificate from an accredited Nigerian institution and be gainfully employed even when polio is finally eradicated.
Asiya Ibrahim in Dala local government area of Kano is a widow. She has been a vaccinator for over six years. She lost her husband shortly before joining the polio programme. The stipends received has been helpful to sustain and keep her house together, including the upbringing of her children such as schooling, feeding and clothing.
With the frequency of the polio campaigns in the north, stipends received after each round cushioned the effect of losing her husband as she is always engaged in some form of activity.
Prior to 2004, operational funds to support SIAs in Nigeria were deposited by partners in a central dedicated account managed by the central government agency responsible for disbursement of the funds to vaccination teams. This mechanism faced a number of challenges including under-payment or non-payment of end-beneficiaries, delays in payment and retirement and inadequate documentation.
WHO conducted a risk assessment in 2013 and then established the Direct Disbursement Mechanism; an innovation that is considered a best practice and emulated by wide range of stakeholders.
With the innovation, the polio programme has helped to build up lives of vulnerable and economically disadvantaged personnel, especially those of women especially in poverty-stricken villages of northern Nigeria. The allowances after each round of SIAs have made them responsible to their immediate families and environment.
Polio interruption impossible without women
While monitoring the February 2017 round of SIAs in Kano, Dr Wondi Alemu, the WHO Country Representative, underscored the important role of female vaccinators who “are doing a marvelous job of fighting polio by negotiating and engaging with parents even when on transit. Without these women, the fight against polio will not be completed in Nigeria. The mothers trust them as they use techniques, including gestures and understandable language to convey much more meaning that easily persuades erstwhile resistant caregivers”.
Dr Alemu strongly feels that one lesson learnt from PEI is that the success of any public health intervention in Nigeria, especially in the north, hinge on the active participation of women who have empathy and patience to deal with diverse human emotions.
Additionally, through numerous training schedules and other activities organized by WHO and other GPEI partners preceding SIAs round, women’s skills have been empowered. Such skills as interpersonal communications skills, including negotiations have immensely contributed to resolving non-compliance to the oral polio vaccine among difficult to convince populations in northern Nigeria.
