More than 14,800 Sancti Spiritus girls and boys will be immunized in the current campaign.
By Arelys García Acosta*
Little Melany’s eyes are full of lights. She is covered in bows and ribbons, she is carried in the arms of her mother who arrives at the vaccination center with the security of other times. A life-saving drug will protect her daughter from a disease that, 30 years ago, paralyzed almost 1,000 children every day in 125 countries, including nations in the Americas.
Until the revolutionary triumph of January 1, 1959 in Cuba, poliomyelitis was an endemic disease that left about 300 minors, each year, with paralysis after contracting the disease.
After great crusades to eliminate this disease, in 1962, Cuba became the first country in the Americas to eliminate polio and currently the entire population under 70 years of age is protected against this highly contagious childhood disease. These are revealing figures of lives saved and battles won against a disease that can cause irreversible paralysis.
THE FUTURE IS NOW
To continue banishing hopelessness and to keep polio eliminated, considered the most relevant result of Cuban Public Health in the field of prevention, the National Bivalent Oral Antipolio Vaccination Campaign is carried out in the country.
As part of this, more than 14,800 Sancti Spiritus boys and girls will be immunized from April 22 to 26.
According to Dr. Niuvys Fundora Martín, head of the Provincial Immunization Program of the Ministry of Public Health, the immunogen is available in the
all of the family doctor’s and nurse’s offices and in the vaccination centers enabled in other places to carry out this health action.
The first stage will last until April 26 and children who, on the 22nd of this month, were more than 30 days old, or have not reached three years of age, will be immunized, said Fundora Martín.
Likewise, the official confirmed that during the recovery week – from April 29 to May 3 – the immunogen will be administered to those infants who at the time of vaccination suffered from a condition contraindicated to receive the medication.
For its part, from June 17 to 21, the other stage will take place in which the minors vaccinated in the first phase will receive the second dose and the 9-year-old children will also be reactivated.
“The drug should not be administered with fever, vomiting, diarrhea, and you should wait 30 minutes before and after vaccination to drink water. It is also contraindicated in immunodeficient children,” added Niuvis Fundora.
The National Bivalent Oral Antipolio Vaccination Campaign coincides with the 22nd edition of Vaccination Week in the Americas, whose purpose is to generate high levels of demand and acceptance of vaccines to protect the population from various diseases.
PROTECTION OF MINORS, PRIORITY
The anti-polio vaccination campaign is carried out every year in Cuba to protect girls and boys from this condition.
According to a report published by the Ministry of Public Health, before the triumph of the Revolution, only two vaccine-preventable diseases were eliminated: yellow fever, in 1908, and smallpox, in 1923.
Between 1962 and until 2021, six vaccine-preventable diseases have been eliminated, as well as some serious forms of other diseases.
Tetanus, haemophilus influenzae type b meningitis, typhoid fever and meningococcal disease are no longer a health problem as they have rates of less than 0.1 per 100 thousand inhabitants.
*Radio Havana Cuba correspondent in Sancti Spíritus
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