The Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has announced the body’s decision to suspend house to house polio vaccination to reduce the risk of coronavirus transmission.
Ghebreyesus disclosed this on Friday during a media briefing on COVID-19.
According to him, “To reduce the risk of increasing transmission of COVID19, the polio oversight board has made the hard decision to suspend house-to-house vaccination campaigns, knowing that this may lead to an increase in polio cases.”
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He said that the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was “working to ensure that once it is safe to do so, countries can be supported to rapidly restart polio vaccination campaigns.”
The WHO DG explained that despite the effect of the coronavirus, the “EndPolio is unshakeable”
He however, said that the coronavirus pandemic was a more deadly enemy, adding that WHO would support countries in the fight against other diseases.
“To reduce this risk, we will support countries to maintain essential immunization for all vaccine preventable diseases.
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‘WHO has published guidance for countries on how to maintain essential health services even while responding to this crisis,” he said.
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