{"id":17434,"date":"2025-07-17T21:27:37","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T21:27:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/?p=17434"},"modified":"2025-07-23T12:22:34","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T12:22:34","slug":"somalia-launches-vaccination-drive-for-700000-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/2025\/07\/17\/somalia-launches-vaccination-drive-for-700000-children\/","title":{"rendered":"Somalia launches vaccination drive for 700,000 children"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>MOGADISHU &#8212;<\/strong> In a remarkable push to protect children\u2019s health, Somalia has successfully immunized nearly 700,000 children through its nationwide \u201cBig Catch-Up\u201d initiative, implemented throughout 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Spearheaded by the Federal Ministry of Health and Human Services, the campaign was made possible through strong collaboration with key partners including GAVI \u2013 the Vaccine Alliance, UNICEF, WHO, the World Bank, and other development organizations.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The campaign focused on reaching \u201czero-dose\u201d children\u2014those who had never received any vaccinations\u2014particularly in remote, underserved, and conflict-affected areas. As part of the rollout, Somalia introduced two critical vaccines for the first time:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">PCV-13, which protects against pneumonia, and<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: justify;\">Rotavirus vaccine, which prevents severe diarrhea\u2014both leading causes of child mortality across the country.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Health experts have hailed the campaign as a breakthrough moment for Somalia\u2019s strained health system, which has long struggled with low immunization rates due to insecurity, displacement, and limited infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">\u201cThis effort goes beyond numbers\u2014it\u2019s about rebuilding systems, reaching the unreached, and restoring public trust in health services,\u201d said one official from the Ministry of Health.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In addition to expanding vaccine coverage, the campaign helped strengthen Somalia\u2019s routine immunization services, improved vaccine supply chains, and bolstered community outreach and awareness.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The Big Catch-Up is part of a wider global recovery effort to restore immunization services disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For Somalia, it represents a vital step forward in protecting vulnerable children and building a more resilient public health system.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><strong>Source: FTL\u00a0 \u00a0Origin: <span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><a style=\"color: #0000ff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ftlsomalia.com\/somalia-immunizes-700000-children-through-big-catch-up-initiative\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener sponsored ugc\">view original<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MOGADISHU &#8212; In a remarkable push to protect children\u2019s health, Somalia has successfully immunized nearly 700,000 children through its nationwide \u201cBig Catch-Up\u201d initiative, implemented throughout 2024 and 2025. Spearheaded by the Federal Ministry of Health and Human Services, the campaign was made possible through strong collaboration with key partners including GAVI \u2013 the Vaccine Alliance, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17455,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17434","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-health-cluster","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17434"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17434\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17454,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17434\/revisions\/17454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sooha.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}