Egypt vaccinates over 3.2 million children in latest polio vaccination campaign

CAIRO – 30 December 2022: Egypt’s Ministry of Health announced vaccinating more than 3.2 million children, who ages five years or less, during the latest limited vaccination campaign in Cairo and Giza earlier this month.

Of the children vaccinated, around 21,495 non-Egyptian children received the vaccine, the ministry said on Friday as it has organized a celebration to honor the medical teams of the preventive medicine sector, who participated in the campaign.

A total of 9,075 medical teams have been responsible for visiting homes to make sure that all targeted children around the two governorates have been vaccinated.

The ministry trains all the medical teams participating in the polio vaccination campaigns out of its keenness to ensure that at least 95 percent of targeted children are vaccinated.

Egypt has launched numerous polio vaccination campaigns to inclue Egyptian and non-Egyptian children with the aim of keeping the country free from the disease.

Egypt has not recorded any polio case since 2004, according to officials. In 2006, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that Egypt is completely polio-free.

During the celebration, Minister of Health Khaled Abdel Ghaffar sad Egypt’s vaccination strategy against polio includes the oral Sabin vaccine and the Salk vaccine, which is given by injection.

This is considered one of the most powerful routine vaccination programs among the countries of the world, Abdel Ghaffar said.