An action as simple as bivalent oral polio vaccination can prevent polio infection. This disease can be disabling as there is a chance of infecting the spinal cord, causing paralysis, even life-threatening.
This is the essential reason why every year, for 62 years in Cuba, a national immunization campaign against polio has been carried out, the second stage of which will begin next Monday, April 24 until Saturday the 29th, with a week of recovery planned between two and the sixth of May.
With a view to the beginning of this campaign in the province of Holguín, organizational details are finalized. In this sense, Dr. Zeida María Orges Vecino, head of the Provincial Vaccination Program, states that “children between the age of one month and one day before their three-year birthday will receive the second dose, who received the first dose between February 27 and March 4 of this year. In addition, children with nine years of age are added, who will be reactivated with this single dose.
As in previous campaigns, those infants who, according to the vaccination schedule, should receive two drops of anti-polio but present vomiting, diarrhea, a temperature above 38 degrees, or immunodeficiency at that time, must wait to restore their state of health and be evaluated by medical personnel.
Immunization, as has become traditional, will take place in Primary Health Care either in medical offices, polyclinics and points set up for the purpose. Related to the above, the Master’s Degree in Infectious Diseases also clarifies that all children in the ages that should receive the vaccine and are in any of the health areas, whether or not they belong to them because they are from other municipalities or provinces of the country, they will also be able to receive it at the point closest to where they are.
Parents of those vaccinated must ensure that the child does not ingest water or other food 30 minutes before and after receiving the dose, to prevent the vaccine from being eliminated with vomiting and regurgitation, since the chlorine in the water also inactivates it.
Since 1962, this disease has been eliminated in Cuba, being the first country in the Americas to eradicate it, however, it still persists in other parts of the world, which is why children in this country must receive this vaccine administered orally.
