Cuba starts recovery week in anti-polio campaign

 

HAVANA, Cuba, May 2 (ACN) The recovery week of the second stage of the 62nd National Oral Polio Vaccination Campaign begins today throughout Cuba, and will last until May 6.

According to information from the Ministry of Public Health ( MINSAP), the recovery will be for infants who have received a dose in the first phase of the Campaign (developed between February 27 and March 4), and could not be vaccinated in the week scheduled for the second stage (from April 24 to 29).

In the first stage, children who were more than one month old on February 27 and those who had reached the age of three years were vaccinated.

Poliomyelitis is an infectious-contagious disease that affects the central nervous system, mainly in children, and can cause muscular atrophy, paralysis, deformity and in some cases death.

Cuba is the first country in Latin America to achieve the elimination of this disease, and in 1995 it received the Certification of Eradication of Poliomyelitis, by the Pan American Health Organization.

Currently, in the Caribbean island, the entire population under 72 is protected against this highly contagious disease, and as of 2021, more than 857 million doses of polio vaccine had been administered.

In the country, as part of the immunization scheme, 11 vaccines are applied against 13 diseases and eight of these vaccines are of national production, an experience that allowed the development of national immunogens against COVID-19.