Uganda completes polio vaccination of 2.7 million children

Kampala, Oct 7 (SocialNews.XYZ) Uganda's Ministry of Health has completed the polio immunization targeting 2.7 million children under five in the eastern part of the country after the virus outbreak was detected there in May, a health official said here Monday.

The four-day door-to-door vaccination exercise across 49 districts in the region, which ended on Sunday, marked the first large-scale round of the polio vaccination campaign after a circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) was confirmed in May from a sewage plant in Doko of Mbale District in eastern Uganda, Director of Public Health at the Ministry of Health Daniel Kyabayinze told Xinhua news agency over phone.

Kyabayinze said the immunization campaign aimed at stopping the spread of the disease is part of the global polio eradication initiative supported by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children's Fund.

"The turn-up was very excellent. The response was good. We covered the children below five years in those 49 districts at risk to make sure that no child will get infected with polio," said Kyabayinze. "We got support from the global polio eradication initiative so that we can eliminate polio with the new vaccines we got."

Uganda was certified polio-free in October 2006 by the WHO after having reported no indigenous cases for 10 years.

Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus transmitted through the fecal-oral route and aerosol droplets, which mainly affects children under five years of age, according to the WHO.

Source: IANS