Stopping polio in Syria

In preparation for the campaigns, polio vaccine was transported long distances to reach Deir Ez-Zor and Raqqa governorates. Careful storage and temperature controls were required to ensure vaccine quality was maintained as it travelled in high temperatures across rugged terrain.

This picture shows monovalent oral polio vaccine type 2 (mOPV2) arriving in Deir Ez-Zor in good condition. Both mOPV2 and inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) are being used in the response. The first vaccination round in Deir Ez-Zor, which ran from 22 to 26 July 2017, aimed to reach 328,000 children under 5. The first round of vaccinations in Raqqa ran from 12 to 17 August, and aimed to reach 120,000 children.

In the lead up and during the campaigns, social mobilizers used a range of approaches to ensure high levels of community awareness of campaign activities. One such approach was the inclusion of information about the campaigns in bread packages.

Social mobilizers also travelled from house to house during the campaign to talk to families about polio vaccination activities, and the importance of the polio vaccine to protect their children from the potentially paralytic disease.

A child in Raqqa receiving mOPV2. The objective of the campaign is to protect every child and rapidly raise population immunity to stop the virus in its tracks.

This health worker is giving mOPV2 to a child in a camp for internally displaced people in Raqqa. More than 10,000 internally displaced children were included in Raqqa campaign plans.

These children from a camp in Raqqa show off their finger markings, to demonstrate that they have been vaccinated against polio during the campaign.