Burundi’s health authorities today launched the country’s first national polio vaccination campaign since 2011, targeting nearly 3 million children under seven years of age following the first alerts of circulating poliovirus type 2 in more than three decades.

Supported by World Health Organization and other Global Polio Eradication Initiative partners, the country has prepared more than 3.7 million doses of nOPV2 vaccine for administration over the next four days. The action is in response to 13 detections of circulating variant poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) reported so far in 2023.