On Mar. 18, 2022, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that Malawi had launched the first round of vaccination campaigns against wild poliovirus type 1.

More than 80 million doses were to be administered to more than 23 million children under 5 years in the four-round vaccination drive in five southern African countries after Malawi declared an outbreak on February 17 – the first such case in the country in 30 years, and the first in Africa since the region was certified free of indigenous wild poliovirus in 2020.