CubaMinrex. Sitio del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

Cuba: More than 0.5 Million Children to be Immunized Against Polio this Year.

CUBA, March 2nd, 2011.-  During this year’s National Anti-Poliomyelitis Vaccination Campaign starting Friday in all Cuba, more than 507,000 children will receive the shot, Dr. Marlen Valcarcel, head of the National Immunization Program announced.

In the first stage of the campaign, March 4-10, the first dose of the vaccine will be administered to 372,000 children from 30 days to two years of age. The same children will be given another dose of the vaccine on a second stage, April 22-28, coinciding with the 9th Vaccination Week in the Americas, said the specialist.

Dr. Valcarcel also noted that the anti-polio vaccine will be reactivated on 134,377 9-year-old children.

This is the 50th Anti-Polio Vaccination Campaign led by Cuban health authorities every year since 1962, which has guaranteed the safety of the people benefitted with the shot.

Before the triumph of the Revolution, the only diseases preventable by vaccines that had been eradicated in Cuba were: yellow fever (1908) and smallpox (1923).

Valcarcel reaffirmed that the diseases currently eliminated in Cuba are poliomyelitis, diphtheria, whooping cough, measles and German measles, and also some serious forms of other diseases (neonatal tetanus and congenital German measles syndrome).

Tetanus, meningitis by Haemophilus influenzae type B and parotitis do not represent a health problem in Cuba as they show rates lower than 0.1 per 100,000 inhabitants.

Meanwhile, the frequency of occurrence and mortality of other diseases like Meningococcal meningitis, typhoid and hepatitis B have been remarkably reduced, said the doctor. (Cubaminrex-Cuban News Agency)