In Uganda a three day door to door immunization exercise against polio has ended with over 80% of children under five receiving the vaccine.
The country last reported a case of polio more than seven years ago, but concerns have grown recently over refugees from the DR Congo and South Sudan bringing the infection into the country.
“This preventive vaccination campaign is to vaccinate all children under five years of age whether previously immunized or not, with Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV) drops in the mouth and achieve at least 95 percent coverage for vaccination in the selected districts,” Anthony Mbonye, the acting director general of health services, told Xinhua in an interview just before the campaign kicked off.
Uganda was certified polio free in October 2006 by World Health Organization after ten years of not reporting any indigenous polio cases.
Cases of wild polio virus are however being reported in the neighboring South Sudan and DRC, where thousands of refugees continue to cross into the east African country fleeing violence back home.
Uganda carried out a similar nationwide door-to-door polio immunization exercise in January 2016, targeting some 7.5 million children below five to avoid the potential spread from neighboring countries.
CGTN’s Isabel Nakirya reports..
