Ten million children. 70 000 workers. Five days.

What does it take to vaccinate every child in Afghanistan?

In March, the Afghanistan polio eradication initiative conducted its first nation-wide immunization campaign for polio eradication in 2018. In just under a week, around 70 000 workers knocked on doors and stopped families in health centres, city streets and at border crossings to vaccinate almost ten million children. What an incredible achievement.

But what does a huge campaign like this take?

We had a look behind the scenes and followed the week in Herat, western Afghanistan. See what the campaign looked like from beginning to end through this photo essay.


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