A polio vaccination campaign started this Friday, November 25, 2022 and will cover all of Burkina Faso. To this end, the Ministry of Health and its partners organized an information and training session for media professionals.
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Poliovirus infection is extremely contagious. A disease that is transmitted through contaminated water, food and even infected people.
This infection spares no one. The idea people had that polio only affects children is wrong. Even older people can be infected. But children aged 0 to 5 remain the most vulnerable target.
According to technicians, a child or an infected person is a source of contamination for 200 other people. Note that there is no cure for polio. Prevention, that is to say vaccination, remains the effective way to prevent this disease.
And in Burkina Faso from 2019 to date, 73 cases of poliovirus including 72 cases of acute flaccid paralysis and one environmental case have been identified and confirmed in 12 of the 13 regions of Burkina distributed as follows in 2019, one case of acute flaccid paralysis, in 2020, 69 cases and 3 cases in 2021.
Hence the importance and the reason for the present vaccination campaign which is being held from November 25 to 29, 2022 throughout the national territory. The campaign runs until November 30, 2022 in areas with high security challenges. At the end of this campaign, the ministry expects to reach approximately 4,017,780 children aged 0 to 5 across all 13 regions of the country.
Vouanda Somé, health adviser in the communication department of the directorate of prevention by vaccination at the Ministry of Health, indicated that Burkina Faso has been certified free of wild poliovirus since 2015 but the recent cases recorded have come from countries bordering.
«In 2021, we identified an environmental case here in Ouagadougou in the Nongr Masson health district. As this case has been identified, it means that this type of virus is circulating in our country and to protect our children and increase their immunity once morest this type of virus, this is why we have organized a vaccination campaign throughout the country. extent of the national territory“, he informed.
He specified that it is an oral vaccine which is administered to children from 0 to 59 months and the campaign will cover the whole country. “Any child regardless of their vaccination status can receive this vaccine. People should know that the more doses the child receives, it increases his immunity to the disease. It’s not for kids who haven’t had a vaccine yet. Nope ! This is for all children regardless of their vaccination status “, he said.
He ended his remarks by noting that the main signs of polio remain paralysis which concerns the lower limbs and the respiratory muscles, which can lead to death.
