Operation Zero Cases: A Tailored Approach to Polio Prevention

"A tailored approach to vaccination means using data to find and vaccinate children wherever they might be."

This film shares how information gathered from families in previous campaigns helped teams increase the number of children vaccinated against polio in Chad. Produced by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) Chad in collaboration with the UNICEF Regional Center in Dakar, Senegal, "Operation Zero Cases: A Tailored Approach to Polio Prevention" sheds light on good practices in terms of the use of collected data for the planning of communication activities in urban environments and on various other aspects of social mobilisation efforts. The film also provides a closer look at the work being undertaken by communication for development practitioners and frontline workers.

A snapshot: Minute 7 in the film tells the story of social mobiliser Francoise, a communication for development consultant with UNICEF who is in the office of the director of the local health centre. She shows results from the independent monitoring surveys administered in the 2 days following the latest polio vaccination campaign. The data reflect that in Francoise's district (N'Djamena North), the greatest number of unvaccinated children (33%) were absent because they were at the market with family members. Meanwhile, just outside of the city, in Massenya, 72% of absent children were in the fields helping their parents with the harvest. According to organisers, this type of information helps Francoise and other colleagues at partner institutions like the World Health Organization (WHO) and government health centres to adapt pre-campaign communication activities and allows vaccination teams to target "out-of-household" areas like markets and farms to reach children who might have otherwise been missed.

"In an effort to keep the momentum going in keeping Chad polio-free, especially with the alarming situation in Cameroon in terms of the recent WPV [wild polio virus] outbreak, and the political turmoil in CAR [Central African Republic], we hope that this product will help attract attention amongst various audiences to the colossal effort it takes to combat polio on the ground."