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Home » IRAQ TO IMMUNIZE 4.8 MILLION AGAINST POLIO
IRAQ TO IMMUNIZE 4.8 MILLION AGAINST POLIO
Iraq's Ministry of Health has begun a five-day national polio immunization campaign to protect 4.8 million Iraqi children after security problems delayed it for weeks, the UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN) reports.
The campaign involves more than 5,400 health workers going house-to-house across Iraq to immunize every child under 5 against polio. The campaign will help to maintain Iraq's polio-free status, a public health triumph won through several successful immunization drives in the past, according to IRIN. The country's last polio case was reported in 2000.
Although polio has been driven out of Iraq, a recent global resurgence of the virus has brought a renewed threat to the region. Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Sudan have all been re-infected since 2004, IRIN reports. And according to the Ministry of Health, the nearly 250,000 children who were born after 2003 in Iraq have not been immunized.
The United Nations Children's Fund is providing oral polio vaccines as well as transport and communication support to help vaccinators reach children in Iraq's most remote areas. The World Health Organization has helped the Iraqi government in planning the campaign, training local health staff and providing incentives for vaccinators.
KEYWORDS Daily International Pharma Alert
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