Dakar, December 10 The President of Senegal and the African Union (AU), Macky Sall, today called on governments across the continent to step up their childhood polio vaccination campaigns, which have been drastically reduced since the start of the coronavirus pandemic .
“Immunization saves lives and is effective in preventing human suffering,” Sall said Saturday at the opening of the Photo on Immunization and Polio Eradication in Africa, held in Dakar.
Thus, the current AU leader called on African heads of state to reiterate their support for the Addis Ababa Declaration on Immunization, adopted in 2017, a “historic pledge” to ensure that all Africans have access to vaccination campaigns.
“This is necessary because health threats, old and new, continue to proliferate,” Sall added.
Although WHO declared Africa a polio-free region in 2020, some outbreaks of the disease continue to appear in under-immunized communities, according to forum organizers.
In addition, the 2020 interruption of vaccination campaigns due to the coronavirus pandemic meant that tens of millions of children did not receive polio vaccines.
“The pandemic (covid-19) has caused a significant decline in routine vaccination rates in Africa, but we have the experience and commitment to reverse this trend,” said the interim director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at Africa (Africa CDC), Ahmed Ogwell.
The forum will also be attended by the presidents of Rwanda, Paul Kagame; Gambia, Adama Barrow; Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló; and the director general of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, among others.
“The right to health also includes the right to have access to vaccines. We must ensure equal access to routine immunization services for all children, regardless of where they live,” Tedros stressed.
“This will save lives, prevent disease and help us better prepare for future crises,” he added.
“Until all people in Africa have access to medical services, including vaccination campaigns, no one will be safe,” Kagame said.
Poliomyelitis is an infectious disease, caused by a virus, which has no cure and whose symptoms include fever, fatigue, vomiting, headache and can cause, in some cases, paralysis of the extremities.
It was an endemic disease worldwide that caused a large number of amputations and disabilities, but thanks to the vaccine discovered in the 1950s, it could be eradicated in different regions such as Europe, the Americas or Africa. EFE extension
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