Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Mozambican health authorities on Monday launched the first round of a vaccination campaign against polio in the northern province of Nampula, aimed at immunizing children between the ages of zero and 10.
The campaign, which is taking place across the country, intends to cover 3,618,100 children in Nampula province.
According to Geraldino Avalinho, head of the Public Health Department in the Provincial Health Service, the campaign will run from 2 to 6 June in all health units and other places where people gather in the 23 districts of the province.
“This campaign will take place in all districts and, to this end, just over 4.26 million doses of polio vaccine have been mobilized”, he said.
Avalinho explained that “In Nampula province, we haven’t had any confirmed cases of polio in the last two years.”
However, the Province has recorded 34 suspected cases, “involving children who appear with a fever.”
“These are children who are eligible to have their samples taken and sent to South Africa for processing. Polio is a highly contagious viral disease and children are the main victims. The polio virus has a specific predilection for the central nervous system, causing paralysis”, he said.
He added that a surveillance system is in place to detect and report all suspected cases.
According to 2022 figures, Nampula province has just over 3.5 million children between the ages of zero and 17, a figure that represents 22 percent of Mozambique’s total population in this age group. The same figures point out that 55.2 percent of these children live more than 30 minutes away from the nearest health facility.
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