Anti-Polio Second Stage in Cuba

Anti-Polio Second Stage in CubaHavana, Apr 23  -. -The second stage of the 49th National Vaccination Campaign against poliomyelitis is starting on Friday in Cuba, which should immunize more than 500,000 children against that disease, once it has been concluded. In this stage, some 362,525 under three-year-old toddlers will receive a second oral dose (two drops), while 143,080 nine-year-old children will have the anti-polio vaccine reactivated.

This stage will end on April 29, and it will take place in the vaccination centers for this purpose, supported by grass-root organizations.

Doctor Miguel Angel Galindo, adviser of the National Vaccination Program at the Public Health Ministry, stated that the vaccine should be administrated to healthy minors. He recommends not drinking water half an hour before and after the vaccine.

Cuba began the first polio vaccination campaign in 1962, and since then about 78 million oral doses have been administered, with which people under 62 years old are immunized against a disease that was a serious health threat before the triumph of the Revolution.

The Pan-American Health Organization and International Commission for the Certification of the Polio Eradication presented Cuba the Polio Eradication Certificate on April 9, 1995.

Cuba has also eliminated other eight infectious diseases: malaria, whooping cough, rubella, neonatal tetanus, diphtheria, measles, congenital rubella syndrome, and post-parotitis meningoencephalitis.

Moreover there is so little occurrence of infections by Haemophilus influenzae type B, hepatitis B and meningococcical meningitis, which are not rated as health problems.

Thanks to the State's political will and improvement of the Cuban program, which currently has 11 vaccines, eight of them of national production, children are being protected against 13 preventive diseases.(Prensa Latina)