FG rolls out emergency polio vaccinations

The Federal Governmnet is planning to roll
out emergency polio vaccinations starting
late August after reporting two new cases
of the disease, UNICEF said Friday.
The new cases represent a major health
setback for Nigeria, which was on track to
be certified free of the virus next year, and
highlights the difficulty of providing basic
health services to people in the
impoverished northeast region ravaged by
Boko Haram insurgents.
The Nigerian government has "moved into
emergency outbreak response mode",
UNICEF spokesperson Priyanka Khanna said
in a statement.
"Planning for a large scale campaign is in
place," Khanna said, "The first campaign will
start on 27 August, targeting 1.3 million
children. Subsequently two further rounds
will be conducted, at two-to-three week
intervals, reaching four-to-five million
children."
Vaccination campaigns are also being
planned in neighbouring countries with a
focus on the Lake Chad region and northern
Cameroon, Khanna added.
The campaign will start in Nigeria's
northeast state of Borno, where the Nigerian
government reported Thursday that two
children had been paralysed by the disease.
Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that
mainly affects young children and can result
in permanent paralysis, according to WHO.
There is no cure and it can be only
prevented through immunisation.