Success Stories
National Immunization Days
USAID supports the Government in the polio eradication campaign in Angola.
Photo: Antonio Dias
The Polio Eradication Initiative has made substantial progress in Angola. National Immunization Days (NIDs) have been introduced through two annual rounds from 1996 to 1998. Three annual rounds were conducted from 1999 to 2002 following a large polio outbreak in Angola with more than 1,103 children affected and 113 deaths reported.
NIDs conducted from 2000 onwards provided the best coverage based on a national house-to-house vaccination strategy and two annual rounds were conducted in 2003 and 2004. There were no polio cases reported between 2002 and May 2005, when a polio wild case was reported, and then a total of eight new cases of wild polio viruses were isolated in a period of three months, making Angola the country with the third highest number of wild polio cases after Nigeria (489) and Ethiopia (17) in September, 2005.
USAID works closely with the Ministry of Health (MOH), World Organization (WHO), UNICEF and the CORE Group, an inter-national consortium of Private Voluntary Organizations (PVOs) in strengthening the immunization and disease surveillance and timely detection of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases, control systems to assure that the successes of these campaigns will continue, provide support to families with children disabled by polio and improved documentation and information sharing.
