Govt launches third round Polio vaccination campaign 

THE government through the Ministry of Health is on Thursday expected to start the third round of vaccination against Polio to under five children.

The four- day campaign running from September 1 to 4 this year aimed at preventing  possibility of the spread of polio in  the country  following  reported cases  of wild polio  virus  in neighboring  Malawi and Mozambique on February 17 this year and May 2022 respectively.

“We are now going to launch the third round campaign countrywide where we will provide polio vaccination to the under five children from September 1-4 this year,” Health Minister Ummy Mwalimu said.

She said the third round campaign targets 12,386,854 under five children.

The World Health Organization (WHO) directs that in case of any polio outbreak, the respective country and neighboring countries are required to provide Polio vaccination to under five children for four consecutive rounds.

The Minister said that the two rounds were successful because many children were reached with the service, she called upon citizens to cooperate with health service providers in the third round campaign in order to reach the targeted children.

” The first round campaign  was conducted  from  March 24 to 27 this year  and was implemented  in four regions bordering  Malawi  which are ,  Mbeya, Songwe, Ruvuma and  Njombe where a total of 1,130,261 children were vaccinated which is equivalent to 115 per cent of under five children,” she said.

She further said that, the second round was conducted countrywide from May 18 to 21 this year and reached 12,131,049 children equivalent to 118.8 per cent.

Ms Mwalimu called upon wananchi to cooperate with a team of health service providers who will visit their areas in order to provide vaccine to the children under five years.