• Submitted by: admin
• Health and Medicine
• 04 / 16 / 2007

Some 357,910 children, ranging from one month to two years, 11 months and 29 days of age, will be administered the first dose during the initial stage of the polio campaign, running until April 19th, said doctor Miguel Angel Galindo, head of the National Immunization Program of the Public Health Ministry.

The second dose will be administered during a second phase of the anti-polio action, which will run from May 25th through 31st. Meanwhile the vaccine will be reactivated on 141,646 nine-year old children.

The Cuban campaign takes place in the context of the 45th anniversary of the declaration of Cuba as the first country in the Americas free of poliomyelitis, a disease causing disability or death.

More than 75 million anti-polio doses have been administered to Cubans over the past decades, which has guaranteed full protection against the disease for the population under 60 years of age, said doctor Galindo.

The Cuban Immunization Program, established in September 1962, includes 11 vaccines, eight of which are produced on the island, offering children protection against 13 preventable diseases.

The public health program has contributed to increasing the expectancy and quality of life in Cuba as well as to decreasing infant mortality, whose rate reached nearly 40 in every 1000 live births before 1959, while just last year that indicator was set at 5,3.

Source: Escambray