Door-to-door campaign to fight polio in Togo

A new campaign to help rid Togo of polio has been launched with volunteers going from door to door to give vaccinations.

The Expanded Programme of Vaccination is being run by the government, as well as a wider programme across Africa from the World Health Organisation, Rotary International, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF.

Sissi and Nadou, who are carrying out the vaccinations, shout "polio vaccination! All children must be immunised", as they go about their work.

Nadou stated: "We will come back a second time this month. I really believe that this national door-to-door campaign will get rid of this disease for good."

Between 2003 and 2007, there were no cases of polio in Togo, but the infectious disease reappeared in 2008 with three new cases.

In the first round of immunization, 1.5 million doses of polio vaccines were handed out across the country.

A 99 per cent decrease in the number of cases of polio worldwide, from 350,000 in 1988 to 1,000 in 2008, has been achieved since the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched 21 years ago.

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