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Anti-polio
immunization starts today
Half a million children to be vaccinated
BY JOSE DE LA OSA—Granma
daily staff writer—
COINCIDING with World Health Day, from today to
next Thursday, the second stage of the 45th Campaign
against Poliomyelitis is being implemented
throughout the country, and "two little drops" of
the oral vaccine will be administered to 524,000
boys and girls.
 On
this occasion, 384,000 children under 3 years (from
1 month to 2 years, 11 months and 29 days) will
receive a second dose after being immunized
in February, and more than 140,000 9-year-olds (aged
9 to 9 years, 11 months and 29 days) will have
theirs reactivated with one.
Professor Miguel Galindo, head of the Ministry of
Public Health’s National Vaccine Program, informed
that over the last decades, some 70 million doses of
vaccine against poliomyelitis have been administered.
The entire population younger than 60 – about eight
million Cubans – have been immunized against that
disease.
The World Health Organization announced that
although the number of polio cases in the world went
down from 350,000 in 1988 to 1,180 in 2004, last
year that figure went up, which is why international
agencies are intensifying their efforts to eradicate
the disease in Nigeria, India, Pakistan and
Afghanistan, countries where it remains endemic.
Moreover, eight countries have notified the
presence of the imported disease: Angola, Chad,
Ethiopia, Indonesia, Nepal, Niger, Somalia and
Yemen.
When the Cuban Revolution triumphed in 1059,
poliomyelitis was the cause of quite a few deaths,
and paralyzed an average of 300 children per year.
Cuba was the first country in the Americas to
eradicate polio in 1962.
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