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In the face of the challenges posed by the pandemic, Ghana is working to protect 4.5 million at-risk children from polio through the launch of two polio vaccination campaigns. Here’s a closer look at those efforts for World Polio Day.

Timor Leste has kept COVID-19 infections to a minimum, and thanks to effective collaboration has managed to successfully reverse the initial declines seen in immunisation coverage and health service delivery.

With only 542 global cases in 2019, polio is a distant memory in most parts of the world. However, this highly contagious disease could spread rapidly in communities with limited access to vaccines, health care and sanitation – a risk greatly exacerbated by disrupted vaccination campaigns triggered by the pandemic.

When I was 12, I received the HPV vaccine just like most girls my age in Rwanda. The day after we got the first dose, my classmates started spreading rumours about the vaccine that they had heard from their families and communities.

In Malawi, primary school drop-out rates are among the highest in Africa. To try and guarantee high coverage, the HPV vaccine is administered to 9-years-old girls.

Helping rural and urban girls across Ethiopia understand cervical cancer and HPV.

More than 3,000 health workers are conducting a three-day health campaign from 30 August to 1 September 2020 to ensure that around 400,000 children aged under five receive measles and polio vaccines, as well as vitamin A and deworming tablets, at fixed and outreach sites.

By foot, boat and bicycle, thousands of volunteer vaccinators in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) go to extraordinary efforts, sometimes at personal risk, to help eradicate polio.

When Aisha took her son Busami Modu to his grandmother’s house in Kuya, a village in Borno state, Nigeria, she waved goodbye to a healthy, happy little boy. A “beauty to behold,” she recalls. The next time she saw him, he was paralysed and unable to walk.

Health workers are stopping at nothing to ensure immunizations for every child.