Launch of the Fifth Round of the Vaccination Campaign against Polio

The polio control task force in Syria began the fifth round of the mobile vaccination campaign to end polio in the liberated areas of the provinces of Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, Hasakah, Aleppo, Idlib, Hama and Latakia. The fifth round comes in a series of six rounds during which the task force is going to re-give vaccines to the already vaccinated children and to those who missed the the previous rounds. The polio control task force launched earlier this year the six-round vaccination campaign in the opposition-held areas of seven Syrian provinces. 1.25 million children were vaccinated in the first round, 1.4 million in the second, 1.41 million in the third, 1.44 million in the fourth, while it is expected that around 1.44 million children will be vaccinated in the fifth round. The task force ensured the safety of cooling equipment and the readiness of volunteer teams to overcome the difficulties they faced in the last round. The teams received vaccines allocated to the fifth round from the Directorate of Health in Gaziantep, Turkey. The polio control task force was composed through the efforts and coordination between ACU, local councils and a number of local and international non- governmental organizations under the slogan “Let’s End Polio in Syria.” The team is composed of 8,000 volunteers and more than 200 doctors. (Source: Syrian Coalition)