IPV Administration Training — Correct Injection Technique for Frontline Teams

This training material covers the correct administration of inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) by health workers in Pakistan. It exists because IPV is an injection rather than drops, and an injected vaccine given incorrectly can be both less effective and less safe.

Why IPV is given at all

Pakistan's campaigns run on bivalent oral polio vaccine (bOPV), which protects against wild types 1 and 3. IPV covers all three poliovirus types, including type 2 — which matters because trivalent oral vaccine was withdrawn worldwide in 2016 after wild type 2 was certified eradicated. Since then, type 2 immunity in routine immunisation has depended on IPV.

The two vaccines do different things and are not alternatives. Oral vaccine produces strong gut immunity, which is what interrupts person-to-person transmission. IPV produces strong immunity in the bloodstream, which is what protects the individual child from paralysis. A child needs both. The polio FAQs explain the distinction in plain terms.

What the training covers

• Schedule. Where IPV sits in the routine EPI schedule, and how it is used in supplementary activities in selected high-risk districts.
• Injection site and technique. Correct site selection for infants, needle angle and depth, and how to avoid the common errors that reduce the dose actually delivered.
• Fractional-dose IPV. Intradermal fractional dosing has been used in selected high-risk districts, including in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, to extend limited vaccine supply while still boosting immunity. Intradermal technique differs materially from intramuscular and is covered separately.
• Cold chain. Storage temperature, vaccine vial monitors, and what to do when a monitor indicates heat exposure. Vaccine outside its cold chain is not a weaker vaccine — it may be no vaccine at all.
• Injection safety and disposal. One sterile syringe per child, safe sharps handling, and correct disposal.
• Talking to the parent. Families used to drops often ask why an injection is now being given. The explanation is short and should be consistent across every worker.

Why standardised training matters

The polio workforce is very large and refreshed frequently, so technique drifts unless it is anchored to a single reference. Video is the practical way to do that: a worker in a district training session and a worker in another province three months later see the same procedure performed the same way.

Related material

More video is collected in the video gallery, and campaign imagery in the picture gallery. For the wider strategy this training supports, see the eradication strategy, and for resources and plans, the online resources page.