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UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 16 (Xinhua) -- One of the largest emergency vaccination campaigns ever attempted in Africa will start in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) this week, a UN spokesman said here Tuesday.
The campaign came as the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners were working to curb a yellow fever outbreak that has killed more than 400 people and sickened thousands more.
"The yellow fever outbreak has found its way to dense, urban areas and hard-to-reach border regions, making planning for the vaccination campaign especially complex," the deputy UN spokesman, Frahan Haq, said at a daily news briefing here.
Emergency yellow fever vaccination campaigns have already reached more than 13 million people in Angola and more than 3 million in the DRC, he said.
But some areas are still considered at high risk and preventive vaccination campaigns are planned for the capital city of Kinshasa in the DRC and along the country's border with Angola, which spans more than 2,600 km, he said.
The WHO is coordinating 56 global partners in more than 8,000 locations.
The UN health agency underscored that approximately 17.3 million syringes and 41,000 health workers and volunteers were needed for the campaign.
According to the WHO statement, more than 500 vehicles will be used to transport the teams and supplies, which will be dispersed across more than 8,000 vaccination sites in Kinshasa and along the Angola-DRC border.
The fractional dose campaign in Kinshasa hinges on the availability of vaccines donated by the Brazilian government and manufactured by Bio-Manguinhos, the Immunobiological Technology Institute, WHO said.
It also requires the purchase and shipment of 10 million specialized 0.1ml syringes to ensure the right amount is used for every vaccination.
The UN agency developed guidance and materials to train thousands of health workers and volunteers prior to the campaign -- with those in Kinshasa needing specific instructions on how to vaccinate people using the fractional dose.
Yellow fever is not highly contagious and is easily prevented with vaccines. The mostly mosquito-spread virus was largely wiped out from the West following the development of two vaccines in the 1930s, but still sparks epidemics in Africa and Latin America.
The virus is transmitted by the same species of mosquito that spreads Zika, dengue, and chikungunya.
Once infected, people often fall ill with fever and muscle pain, but many recover after several days. Others reach the more toxic phases, with possible bleeding from the eyes, ears and nose, organ failure and the jaundice which originally gave the disease its name.
