18 February 2010 - A two-day Training of Trainers (ToT) workshop was recently held in Kunduz for 40 doctors and health workers to prepare them for the first round of the polio vaccination campaign this coming spring in the provinces of Kunduz, Takhar and Baghlan.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) technically and financially supported the Department of Public Health (DPH) in the implementation of the vaccination campaign in the north-eastern provinces.

“The objective of the event is to review past outcomes and problems and plan for the coming campaign,” said Dr. Abdul Ahad Hakemi, the mass immunization head in the Northeast Region.

The participants will train the provincial team of coordinators and supervisors in their own provinces; then the trained coordinators will, in turn, train volunteers before starting the first round of polio vaccination.

Under the Mass Immunization Programme, routine vaccination will be held in the health centers, aside from the implementation of the regular National Immunization Days (NIDs), added Dr. Hakemi.

“Since 2004, we didn’t have any polio cases in the northeast region provinces (because as) part of the NIDs, we implement vaccination to prevent the children from (contracting) polio,” said Dr. Hakemi.

“We learned a lot from the training. We reviewed the previous campaign, evaluated the problems and hurdles, and we are going to prepare the plan for the coming round of the polio campaigns,” said Rohullah, one of the participants from Baghlan province.

“This training is a good feedback for the coming rounds – we are learning the useful lessons, we learned (about) the (past polio-vaccination) experiences from each other,” said Faizullah, one of the participants from Takhar province.

“WHO provides the budget of the training, monitors the campaign, and does the evaluation of the campaign; while the UNICEF supports the Ministry of Public Health to operate the NIDs campaign,” said Dr. Nazar Ahmadi of WHO Kunduz.

With UNICEF and WHO support, the Departments of Public Health in the northeast provinces were able to vaccinate 1,119,764 children through the NIDs.

By Shamsuddin Hamedi, UNAMA

Website: World Health Organization in Afghanistan

Website: United Nations Children’s Fund in Afghanistan 

Website: Ministry of Public Health