Uganda Launches Polio Vaccination Campaign in Districts Affected by Latest Ebola Outbreak

Earlier in the month, the World Health Organization and Uganda’s Health Ministry officially announced the end of the Ebola virus outbreak in the country, over six weeks after the last known patient was discharged from hospital. Beginning in September 2022, at least 142 people were infected, among whom it claimed the lives of 56.

Ugandan health authorities have launched a polio vaccination campaign in areas hit by the recent Ebola virus outbreak in the country, the country’s Ministry of Health announced.

Scheduled to last for 10 days, the vaccination campaign is aimed to immunize children under the age of five in the districts of Mubende, Mityana, Kampala, Wakiso, Kassanda, and Mukono, where the Ebola virus was declared under control earlier in the month.

The ministry pointed out that the six areas were excluded during the nationwide door-to-door vaccination campaign against the highly infectious disease last November as the nation was fighting the Ebola outbreak.

In August, a few weeks before the start of the Ebola outbreak in Uganda, a resurgence of polio in the East African country was reported after samples collected, particularly from sewerage plants, in the capital Kampala tested positive.

The virus discovery came roughly two years after the World Health Organization certified Uganda and all of Africa as wild poliovirus free. However, the samples collected in Kampala confirmed a circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2.

An Ebola outbreak was declared in Uganda in September 2022. The deadly virus infected at least 142 people, among whom it claimed the lives of 56. The variation of the virus that circulated in Uganda was the Sudan strain, which is less prevalent in Africa in general than the Zaire variant. On January 11, the end of the Ebola outbreak in the country was officially declared.