Somalia marked World Immunization Week on Monday under the theme of “The Big Catch-Up,” aiming to strengthen primary health care and routine immunization across the country. Somalia has low routine immunization coverage compared to other countries, and the COVID-19 pandemic has further impacted this.
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In collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Health Ministry made progress in 2022 to bridge these gaps in immunization by scaling up efforts to strengthen routine immunization across the country. The WHO estimates that thousands of children under the age of 5 have missed routine immunization during the past three years, and there may be a backslide of over 20% in routine immunization coverage unless progress is quickly restored.
To address this, the UN health agencies and the Health Ministry are planning a “Big Catch-Up” by developing an immunization recovery plan to catch up on all children who missed routine immunization in the past three years. In 2022, the Health Ministry jointly implemented accelerated immunization activities and campaigns for COVID-19, measles, polio, and vitamin A and deworming. The WHO deployed more than 2,100 community health workers, while UNICEF deployed over 6,000 social mobilizers to disseminate health messages and track and help immunize children who missed immunization. The joint efforts helped vaccinate over 3.2 million children under age 5 against measles and 3.5 million against polio.