November 2023 – Ethiopia introduced the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine for girls aged 14 years old in 2018 and the COVID-19 vaccine in March 2021. Since then, HPV vaccination has been provided as two doses to girls aged 14 years with a six-month interval and the COVID-19 vaccine to all people aged 12 years and above. To reach communities that had previously been unable to participate, Ethiopia launched an integrated vaccination campaign in the Tigray region on 15 August 2023, providing HPV and COVID-19 vaccines along with other healthcare interventions.

UNICEF Ethiopia in partnership with the Tigray Regional Health Bureau (TRHB) and 4 main CSOs (Mums for Mums, Relief Society Tigray, Tigray Youth Empowered Solutions and Mothers and Children Multisectoral Development Organization) supported the planning, implementation, and monitoring of this campaign. The integrated campaign was conducted in 76 woredas of 6 zones of the Tigray region (except Western zone and some inaccessible woredas) in collaboration with High-level officials, religious and community leaders.

This integrated campaign included COVID-19 vaccination for people 12 years and above, HPV vaccination for 14-year-old girls, catch-up immunization for the zero-dose and under-vaccinated children, and identification of women with obstetric fistula, uterine prolapses and children with clubfoot.

The community were mobilized through social media and printed materials for the launch and to indicate vaccination posts. In the lead-up to the campaign, sensitization sessions were held at the district level focusing on the youth groups as they significantly contribute to the targeted populations for both HPV and COVID-19 vaccination. About 1.1 million (1,150,363) doses of COVID-19 vaccine were allocated for this campaign this included Sinopharm, Johnson and Johnson, and Pfizer vaccine and 75,037 doses of HPV vaccine.

As the campaign was integrated with many other lifesaving activities, interpersonal communication and the face-to-face approach were utilized to identify and communicate with the target audience (1,265,138). Initially, the school closure was reported as a concern that may affect the HPV vaccination implementation, but the RHB used the Ashenda festivity to reach target girls and successfully provided HPV vaccination, during out-of-school.

The campaign performance as of 23 August 2023, showed that 923 suspected obstetric fistula cases were identified and referred, 463 club foot cases for under 2 years (203) and > 2 years (260) were identified and referred, 5,113 uterine prolapse cases of women identified and referred. Moreover, the campaign was used as an opportunity to reach zero-dose and the under-immunized children and hence, 3,520 zero-dose children were identified and vaccinated, and 5,251 children were vaccinated: with Penta 3 (3,991), MCV1 (3319) and MCV2 (1,647).