Vietnam to vaccinate 2.3 million children, citing Indonesia polio outbreak
HANOI - Vietnam will vaccinate nearly 2.3 million children aged under five against polio, with a top health official citing the threat of the disease spreading from Indonesia and elsewhere.
The vaccination drive will be conducted in two rounds, in November and December, said doctor Do Sy Hien, chairman of the national program.
"We have to do that because of the risk that polio may enter Vietnam, not just from Indonesia, but from any country where the disease still exists," Hien told AFP.
Vietnam eliminated polio in 1997 and three years later was internationally acknowledged to have done so, he said Monday.
Infants are routinely vaccinated against polio in Vietnam but the latest campaign seeks to plug any loopholes.
Health officials in the Philippines said last week they would vaccinate more than half a million children in the south of the country, fearing a spread of the outbreak from neighboring Indonesia.
The waterborne virus, which attacks and withers children's limbs and can kill them, reemerged in Indonesia in April, nearly a decade after it was believed to have been stamped out there.
The country, the 16th to be reinfected after an outbreak in Nigeria, has reported 226 infections, including one adult who died.
Indonesia will intensify its ongoing vaccination efforts to ensure the target of covering all 24.3 million children aged under five in the vast nation is reached, Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari said on Thursday.
Agence France Presse - September 05, 2005.
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