Sierra Leone launched the first round of polio National Immunization Days (NIDs) Campaign 2012 in Waterloo on 23 March 2012. Hon Borbor Sawyer, Deputy Minister of Health and Sanitation launched the campaign, which will run from 23-26 March 2012. Delivering his state-ment, the Hon Deputy Minister said, “the community must ensure that the campaign is successfully delivered to ensure our children are pro-tected from the discomforting challenges of permanent disability”. He further reaffirmed Sierra Leone’s commitment “to remain a strong party to the global polio eradication effort”. The Hon Deputy Minister administered the first dose of the Oral Polio Vaccine. Officials of the MoHS, civil society organizations, local and traditional leaders, mem-bers of the Waterloo community and representatives of the UN Country Team attended the event.

Mrs Margaret James, UNICEF Health Officer delivered statement on behalf of the United Nations Country Team. She reminded the gather-ing that polio has been declared as an emergency and stressed the need to reach all targeted children during this campaign with the aim of keeping the country’s promise of interrupting transmission of wild polio virus.

Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) will be administered to an estimated 1.3 million children aged 0-59 months using house-to-house strategy. The campaign is synchronised with 19 other countries in the West and Cen-tral African Region to ensure that the targeted children are protected against polio.

In 2011, Sierra Leone successfully conducted six rounds of polio NIDs. Data from independent monitors showed that 10-12% of children were missed particularly from the hard-to-reach areas and communities. Ad-equate preparations including micro planning have been undertaken to reduce the unacceptably high proportion of missed children.