TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A team of professors and students from Taiwan’s top university (NTU) are on the ground in Malawi helping vaccinate people against polio, as Malawi fights an outbreak of the deadly disease.
This week marked the completion of the third round of the year’s vaccination campaign to eradicate wild poliovirus type 1. The volunteers, led by Professor Sally Chen, are part of the SHANTU organization, which is an acronym for Sustainable Healthy Actions – National Taiwan University (NTU).
In February 2022, a case of polio was reported in Malawi’s capital city of Lilongwe, prompting the country to declare a health emergency and begin a rapid vaccination campaign to protect the population. It was the country’s first reported case in over 30 years.
SHANTU is a cooperative project between NTU, Pingtung Christian Hospital, and the non-profit organization Luke International Malawi. The volunteers are working to educate local people about the virus and to promote general education on health and nutrition.
Over the past two years, the students and professors helped the country with its response to the COVID pandemic. So, when news of the polio emergency was reported, they were already on the ground, and ready to join the international effort.
According to UNICEF, Malawi received 6.8 million doses of the polio vaccine in 2022. This was thanks to the assistance of organizations like the Rotary Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Gavi, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
As it takes multiple doses to achieve full immunization, the campaigners hope to administer four rounds of the vaccine to 2.9 million children in the country.
The World Health Organization estimates that 3.4 million doses were administered in the third round of vaccination, which began on Aug. 11 and lasted four days. During the most recent round, Dr. Chen and the SHANTU volunteers were assigned to the District Health Office in the region of Mzuzu, according to their online fieldwork journal.
As part of an international team, the students traveled house to house, checking on the vaccination status of children. After each child receives a dose of the vaccine, a fingernail is marked with black dye to help with monitoring the vaccination status of families in a community.
A child's fingernail is marked after vaccination. (SHANTU photo)
Dr. Chan Chang-chun (詹長權), a professor of NTU's College of Public Health, told Taiwan News that SHANTU's work in Malawi demonstrates the global reach of Taiwan's high-quality educational programs, as well as Taiwan’s commitment to global health education.
