One Day. One Focus: Ending Polio 24 October

Thank you for your support and generosity in supporting our health intervention to vulnerable children and their communities.

With your generosity entrusted to us as an organization in support against Polio vaccination campaign by Charitable Incorporated Community Organization Uganda was a three-day campaign in the month of April 2023. Aimed at reaching out to all children below the age of five. The target was to immunize over 200 children and also reach out to those who missed routine immunization.  The exercise started on the 14th of April, 2023, and ended on the 16th which was a Sunday.

On the 17th of February 2023, the ministry of health declared Polio a Public Health Emergency in Uganda. This followed the positive laboratory tests from environmental samples in Kampala that confirmed Poliovirus Type 2. The World Health Organization certified Uganda and Africa as wild-Polio virus-free in August 2020.  Transmitted from person to person or through contaminated water or food and multiplies inside the intestines. The virus spends through stool from an unvaccinated child which can cause sore throat, fever, tiredness, stomach ache, and paralysis.

The delivery of essential health services including routine immunization was affected extensively. Children immunized against vaccine-preventable diseases were fewer. This slowdown leads to the rebirth of Polio globally, including in Uganda. By the end of August, the Ministry of Health said that up to two million children had missed out on the Polio Vaccination.

The ministry of health brought it to itself to conduct a nationwide Polio immunization campaign in October and December 2023. During which the health workers were to visit house to house. To vaccinate children under the age of 5 years against Polio.  To ensure children are safely vaccinated without the risk of getting affected.