Emergency OCV campaigns during COVID-19

June 26, 2020

On 30 April 2020, after several countries had stopped vaccination campaigns due to COVID-19 pandemic, the GTFCC Steering Committee issued a statement urging countries to continue reactive vaccination campaigns and resume preventative immunization with Oral Cholera Vaccine (OCV) in cholera hotspots as soon as it could be done safely.

In the past few weeks the International Coordinating Group (ICG) approved requests from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and Uganda, two countries that have experienced heavy torrential rains in April. The reactive campaign in Moroto, Uganda, was implemented the week of 15th June. Additional protective equipment was used to protect the population and health workers against COVID-19. Another reactive campaign will start early July in South Kivu, DRC and will target more than 1 million people. This measure complements the efforts put in place by the Ministry of Public Health and its partners to stop the ongoing cholera outbreak. These measures include the setup of treatment centers in affected areas and the strengthening of prevention measures such as water chlorination points.

Countries also start resuming preventive campaigns as shown by the implementation of a 2nd round of vaccination in North Kivu, DRC, where 481,000 where people vaccinated between 2nd and 8th June.