A measles vaccination campaign was conducted in Ethiopia from February to March 2022 in SNNP, Somali and Oromia regions targeting more than half a million children aged between 6 months to 10 years. The campaign aimed to stop the spread of a measles outbreak reported from 12 woredas (districts) in three regions: seven woredas of SNNP, one woreda of Guji Zone in Oromia, and four woredas of Somali putting more than 650,000 children at risk.

Following the risk assessment and the detailed investigation report, the national Public Health Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) together with the Expanded Program on Immunization (EPI) Technical Working Group recommended conducting a non-selective vaccination campaign. As per the recommendation, 21 woredas and one refugee camp in the three affected regions 

The campaign was coordinated by the Ethiopian Public Health Institute (EPHI), regional public health emergency management (PHEM) teams, and zonal and woreda health offices in collaboration with partners such as WHO and UNICEF.

WHO support to the measles outbreak response and vaccination campaign include technical support at national and regional level in the investigation of the outbreak and planning of response actions, financial support for the operational cost and deployment of experts to coordinate and monitor the vaccination campaign.

WHO also supported district-level training of vaccinators and team supervisors, ensured optimized cold-chain system and logistics are in place, and guided vaccinators to ensure COVID-19 prevention measures were observed during the campaign.