by Feng Yingqiu
A total of 7.4 million children under five years of age in Myanmar are due to receive polio vaccine starting Saturday as the first phase of the country's annual immunization days activities.
The three-day immunization activities will be followed by another three days from Feb. 7 to 9 as the second phase.
The polio vaccination campaign this year is a follow-up precaution measure against polio comeback in 2007.
With the help of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the campaign will cover a total of 325 townships.
The polio vaccination campaign also includes vaccination against measles, tuberculosis, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, hepatitis-B and ARI (Acute Respiratory Infection) diseases.
All mothers and regional social associations are being urged to work together to ensure giving polio vaccines to each and every under-five children in the national immunization days in order that all under-fives are free from the disease.
In 2007, A total of 2.5 million children under five in the country were vaccinated against polio under a specially expanded program on immunization following the detection of fresh wild polio virus in a two-and-a-half-year-old boy in Maungtaw township, western coastal Rakhine state, in April of the year.
A total of 10 children in the Maungtaw township and one in Bhuthitaung township were infected with the wild polio virus.
The wild polio virus, spread from neighboring Bangladesh, also infected four others in Yangon division's Kayan, Bago division's Phyu, Kayin state's Pha-an and Mon state's Chaungsone, according to then report.
Since then, long-term cooperation has been made between Myanmar and Bangladesh, which borders Myanmar's Maungtaw.
Tracing back to May 2006, a highly infectious polio, caused by a virus like wild-type polio virus, was suspected in northern Myanmar's Pyin Oo Lwin township, creating a threat for a likely recurrence of the disease in the polio-free Southeast Asian nation already recognized by a regional committee in 2003.
The country selected the township as a central venue for launching its biannual national immunization activities in September and October in the year giving oral polio vaccination to children under five in 80 townships surrounding Pyin Oo Lwin with the cooperation of the two UN organizations as well as the Japanese embassy and non-governmental organizations.
More than 2 million children in the 80 townships scattered in Mandalay, Magway, Sagaing, Shan and Kachin divisions and states were then covered.
The Myanmar health authorities have stressed the importance to continue working towards a polio-free country despite enjoying the status since 2003.
Source: Xinhua
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