Kini Nsom
26 May 2008
Health authorities in Cameroon will on May 30 launch an intensive vaccination campaign against poliomyelitis (polio). The onslaught that will go from May 30 to June 1 is aimed at vaccinating children between 0 to 5 years.
While announcing the campaign in a press briefing on May 23, in Yaounde, the Secretary of State in the Ministry of Public Health, Alim Hayatou, said government was bent on kicking polio out of Cameroon. The polio virus causes paralysis in children.
The authorities of the National Enlarged Immunisation programme and officials of the World Health Organisation, WHO, pledged that health personnel would embark on a door-to-door campaign and administer the polio vaccine in all 174 health districts in the country. It is incumbent on health authorities in the Northern provinces given that refugees from Chad are in the area.
It was in this perspective that the Secretary General in the Ministry of Public Health, Dr Fru Angwafor, said that refugee camps have also been targeted for vaccination.The anti-polio campaign comes on the heels of another one that took place in the Far North, Littoral and Southwest provinces in April.
Parents have been advised to make sure that their children are vaccinated. The campaign is in tandem with the resolve of the governments of the Central African and the West African sub regions to eliminate the wild polio virus in the areas. This commitment is one of the resolutions that stakeholders took during OAU summit in Yaounde in 1996.
Emphasis will be laid on the Far North, Littoral and Southwest provinces given that they share boundaries with Nigeria where the wild polio virus is still very much alive.
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