Why So Many Somali Children Go Unvaccinated

Somalia remains at high risk of polio transmission, the World Health Organization says, and vaccination campaigns now target more than 2.5 million children under five.

At a clinic in Mogadishu, 40-year-old Sadia holds her 13-month-old child. The child is often sick and has never been vaccinated. Distance and cost played a part, Sadia says, but fear fed by misinformation made the final call.

Rumours linking vaccines to infertility and illness still circulate across Somalia, most of all in underserved communities. Health experts say weak training among some frontline workers has deepened the doubt. Errors in giving vaccines have pushed some families to opt out altogether. Decades of state collapse hollowed out schools and clinics, and unqualified practitioners now fill the gaps, eroding trust further.

One health official says the harm lasts a lifetime: a child paralysed by polio may never attend school, Quranic or otherwise, and the country loses human capital.

The problem crosses borders. In Ethiopia and Kenya, misinformation and access barriers continue to disrupt immunisation in remote and cross-border communities. Back in Somalia, health workers are trying to rebuild trust.