Emergency vaccination campaign on the Somali-Kenyan border

Vaccination campaigns rapidly boost immunity of refugees vulnerable to outbreaks of communicable diseases.

Newly arrived refugees at the Dadaab refugee camp, northern Kenya. Riccardo Gangale/UNICEF
Newly arrived refugees at the Dadaab refugee camp, northern Kenya.
Riccardo Gangale/UNICEF

8 August 2011 – The Horn of Africa is facing its worst drought in over 50 years; child malnutrition rates are more than double or triple the 15% emergency threshold and are expected to rise.

Malnourished children are more prone to sicknesses and diseases, such as measles. An outbreak in the Kobe refugee camp in Ethiopia, for example, has already resulted in 47 confirmed cases of measles, including three deaths.

From 25–29 July, the Kenyan Ministry of Health, WHO Kenya and Somalia and UNICEF Kenya and Somalia launched a cross-border vaccination campaign for children living around Dadaab, a large settlement for Somali refugees in north-eastern Kenya. After registration, newly arrived Somali refugees in the Dadaab camps are medically screened and vaccinated. To protect the host population in the area, a vaccination campaign, lead by WHO, targeted about 215 000 children under five, with measles and polio vaccines, together with vitamin A and deworming tablets.

This photo story  and video illustrate in more detail the nature of the vaccination campaign.


Related News

   21/09/2023
A success story for public health despite extreme challenges of war
   04/09/2023
Newly-appointed Pakistan leaders committed to delivering polio-free country
   07/08/2023
Since the Republic of Congo first confirmed a case of cVDPV1 in March 2023 (the first such detection in more than two decades), the country has been pioneering the deployment of Geospatial Tracking Systems (GTS) to help curb further transmission.
   25/07/2023
At the earliest signs of the ongoing conflict in Sudan, in the middle of April, WHO’s country team sprang into action. After all, conflict and infectious diseases are known to be comrades.
   21/07/2023
Says commitment to polio eradication remains commendable, interruption of wild poliovirus is possible in six months with support from communities, government, administrative and security leadership