• Submitted by: admin
• Health and Medicine
• 04 / 22 / 2010

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More than half a million Cuban children will be immunized during the second stage of the 49th national anti-polio vaccination campaign that begins on Friday, April 23.

During this period, some 362,500 children over one month old and under three years of age will receive a second dose.

This group had their first dose in the first stage of the vaccination campaign in March.

On this occasion, nearly 143,000 nine-year-olds will also receive a re-activation dose.

All Cuban citizens under 63 years old are vaccinated against poliomyelitis, a disease that may cause death or leave serious effects such as partial or total disability.

The first national anti-polio campaign was carried out in 1962 and it included 2.4 million Cubans, a third of the population of the island that at that time was estimated at 6.5 million.

Cuba eradicated poliomyelitis 26 years before a still unsuccessful worldwide initiative was launched against this disease in 1988.

Source: ACN