USAID, the United Nations, the Government of Southern Sudan (GOSS), and other international partners launched a polio immunization campaign March 28 in southern Sudan, where the crippling disease re-emerged in 2008.
“Due to the efforts of the GOSS, development partners, and people of southern Sudan, the outbreak that re-emerged in South Sudan in 2008 has been halted,” USAID/Sudan Mission Director William Hammink explained at the Juba Nyakuron Cultural Center, where the three-day campaign was launched. “Since 2005, USAID has committed over $8 million to support polio immunization and eradication as well as routine immunization activities across the region,” he added.
GOSS Minister of Health Dr. Luka Tombekana Monoja and Minister of Information Dr. Barnaba Marial Benjamin GOSS said it is time to “kick it and keep it out” when referring to polio and other preventable diseases. The ministers expressed their commitment to continue campaigns that vaccinate against preventable diseases, including polio. Along with international organizations such as USAID and Rotary, the GOSS pledged to reach those in need throughout southern Sudan, particularly children in remote areas.
Mothers attending the event were invited to have their young children vaccinated with ‘just two drops’ of the polio-preventing vaccine.
USAID assisted with the last polio immunization campaign in November 2010, which reached more than 3 million children under age 5 in southern Sudan with the vaccine, achieving polio immunization coverage of 99 percent.
