| Submit your comments on this article | |
| Africa Horn | |
| Puntland launches seventh round of polio vaccines | |
| 2013-09-16 | |
Speaking to the media at health ministry headquarters in Puntland capital of Garowe, Puntland’s Deputy Minister of Health Zaynab Ugas Yasin encouraged the parents to make their children available for immunization, “two drops of polio vaccines would be given to every child to prevent wild polio virus from spreading,” said Yasin. “Vaccinators will be dispatched to schools and other public places in an effort to improve outreach work aimed at children who are at risk of getting polio,” she added. “After specimens were collected from Bossaso, a child tested positive for wild polio virus marking first case to be reported across Puntland”. Health ministry alongside WHO and UNICEF conducted mass vaccination that saw children below five years but officials say Somalia is not free of the polio virus as over 80 cases were reported from southern part of the country. Meanwhile, on July 23 the Director of Beledweyne General Hospital Dr. Ahmed Mohamed Khalif confirmed to Garowe Online that polio outbreak claimed at killed at least 11 lives in Hiraan region. | |
| Posted by:Steve White |