This year is the World Health Organization's 75th birthday. The theme is 'Health for All' and will be formally celebrated on World Health Day on 7th April 2023. For more information, click here.

February EYE Strategy Newsletter 

International Women’s Day

8th March was International Women’s Day. We pay tribute to all the women working in public health, especially our frontline healthcare workers, who work tirelessly to care for others and save lives every day.  

Country updates

Reactive Vaccination Campaigns (RVCs)  

All RVCs are approved by the International Coordinating Group on Vaccine Provision (ICG) and supported by Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.  

Guinea 

An RVC has been planned in Guinea for March 2023 following confirmation of a case and subsequent death in November 2022. The campaign will be implemented in Dabola health district and surveillance has been strengthened in neighbouring districts.

Monitoring of yellow fever (YF) vaccination cards has also been ramped up at Conackry airport. Implementation should be completed by the end of the month. This response aims to protect over 200,000 people.  

Congo 

Congo is planning mop-up activities using the vaccine surplus from a previous preventive mass vaccination campaigns (PMVC). This response aims to protect over 1 million people across all districts. 

Preventive mass vaccination campaigns (PMVCs)

Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) 

The YF PMVCs in accessible parts of Sud Kivu and Maniema have now been completed, protecting over 12.1 million people.  

Campaigns in six hard-to-reach areas have now also been completed. These areas are Shabunda, Kalole, Lulingu, Mulungo, Minembwe and Itombwe. 

An additional 17 million people are being targeted in March 2023 in Lomami, Kasai, East Kasai, and Central Kasai.  

Sudan 

12 states in Sudan have now completed their mop-op campaigns to protect people against YF and polio. These are Gazeria, Sennar, Blue Nile, South, West, North, East, Central Darfur, South, West and North Kordofan. The campaign in Khartoum was a YF vaccination campaign only. 

Uganda      

In addition to the successful introduction of the YF vaccine into Uganda’s routine immunization (RI) programme, the country has planned a multi-year PMVC, which is due to start in May 2023. 

Press release 

Nigeria 

Community awareness team raising awareness about the YF vaccination exercise in Bayelsa State, Nigeria. © WHO Nigeria

Prevention is better than cure – Bayelsa state vaccinates residents against yellow fever  

Yenagoa, 14 February 2023 - It was between 11am and noon on a recent Wednesday when health workers with their Geostyle boxes filled with the yellow fever (YF) vaccines got to Kpansia area of Yenagoa Local Government Area (LGA), Bayelsa State.  

Having lost a sibling to YF in 1996, Tarekebi Ebi-Jones, a 40-year-old single mother of two was waiting patiently for her turn to get her children vaccinated against the disease.  

“I first heard of yellow fever in late 1996 when my younger sister suddenly developed yellow eyes and a high fever. It was a difficult time for my family as my parents took her to a patent medicine vendor, who prescribed some drugs, but she soon went into seizures, and subsequently coma, before she died. 

To read the full article, click here.

Publications

Since its initial launch, in 2005, the Global Immunization Newsletter (GIN) has been a platform for information-sharing across the immunization community.

Inside each issue, it features the latest programme updates, policy news, key learnings and developments on immunization and vaccines, with the goal of communicating the impact of our work and technical expertise. 

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