The second national polio vaccination campaign launched

Ministry of Health on Sunday launched the second national vaccination campaign against polio that targets 2.2 million children under five

Health Minister Saad al-Nayef stressed that all health centers area prepared and ready to receive children and that vaccines are available in all the provinces

“The turnout today is a good and promising start and indicates that the campaign will be a success,” said al-Nayef during a tour he made to a health center in Mazzeh 86 area in Damascus

He added that the 5-day vaccination campaign, just like other previous or coming campaigns, is carried out in cooperation with civil society associations to ensure access to all areas

The immunization campaigns inside Syria have coincided with several similar campaigns in neighboring countries through medical centers on the crossing borders to ensure that all targeted children are reached

Rudolf Tangram of Polio program at the World Health Organization hailed the Health Ministry’s preparations for the vaccination campaigns and the great turnout to the health centers, stressing that the Ministry is doing a great job

He noted that the current campaign is going in the right direction in terms of both preparation and implementation

The campaign targets 750,000 children in Aleppo, 47,000 in Sweida, 328,000 in Hama, 108,000 in Daraa, 141,000 in Homs and 241,000 in Hasaka

Those include children at schools and makeshift residential centers who can have access to vaccines through the health centers and medical workers and volunteers, in addition to mobile teams and Syrian Arab Red Crescent teams so as to reach children in inaccessible areas

The Ministry of Health has set a plan to carry out 6 nation-wide vaccination campaigns against polio after a number of polio cases have been detected in Syria

The first of this series of campaigns, which wrapped up on December 16, reached 2,177 million children under five. Deir Ezzor province has the largest share with approximately 294,000 children vaccinated, in addition to 269,000 children in Hama and 247,000 others in Hasaka

Earlier, a national vaccination campaign against polio was organized between October 24 and November 21 and reached nearly 2.223 million children all over Syria at both health

centers and makeshift residential centers, surpassing its planned goal estimated at 1.6 million children

SANA