On Thursday, Mozambique will start vaccinating children and adolescents under 15 years old against polio in a campaign that will last four days throughout the country, being this the 8th polio vaccination campaign held in the country, after 7 others were held in 2022.
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"We are talking about 19,978,803 children and adolescents who will be vaccinated in this round. It is a process that will require a great effort from all of us, especially from health professionals," said Benigna Matsinhe, deputy director of Public Health at the Ministry of Health.
Matsinhe also stated that, with the cooperation of 27,000 teams, around 7 million U.S. dollars were allocated for the new vaccination campaign.
“The immunisation will take place in health units, homes, schools, day care centres, places of religious worship, markets and other places of concentration of people,” Matsinhe said.
Poliomyelitis is an infectious disease with no cure, which affects mostly children under five years old and can only be prevented with the vaccine, stressing that in some cases it can cause paralysis of limbs.
According to official government reports, in February, the ministry announced that it would carry out four more rounds of immunization this year against polio.
According to the latest updates from health authorities, 33 cases of polio have been reported in 2022, with Zambezia and Tete provinces being the most critical.