• Submitted by: admin
• Health and Medicine
• 04 / 06 / 2007

The nationwide campaign to immunize the nation s young people 12 to 24 years old began Thursday and will extend until October.

Miguel Angle Galindo, chief of the National Immunization Program at the Public Health Ministry, explained that the island eliminated measles in 1993 and rubella and mumps in 1995.

However in 2004, cases of mumps appeared in people over 12 years old, so health authorities invested over two million dollars in vaccines, at the cost of $1.40 on the international market.

The campaign will be carried out in schools, technological centers and universities, as well as in health centers, excluding pregnant women and AIDS patients, the official stated.

The French-origin MMR is a live and harmless vaccine, which gives life immunity to over 95 percent of those vaccinated.

Before the 1959 revolutionary triumph, mumps affected some 50,000 Cubans and, thanks to the current national immunization, the country is working to eradicate this disease, Galindo affirmed.

Source: Escambray