Hiiraan Online
Saturday October 24, 2015
MOGADISHU (HOL) – The United Nations
Children’s Fund has declared Somalia free of the crippling polio virus Friday,
after the last polio case was identified by health specialists.
The development which represents a remarkable
achievement for the efforts aimed at containing the disease was achieved after
close collaborations by the government, health workers and parents.
Health workers have longed faced challenges
in vaccinating children as the result of prejudice by parents who often taken
up the prejudice that vaccines would cripple their children or infect them with
serious diseases.
“The rapid, coordinated response to the
outbreak helped slow the spread of polio, with only five new cases reported in
2014. The last case was reported in Hobyo district, Mudug on 11 August 2014.”
UNICEF said in a statement issued on Thursday.
According to UNICEF, More than 2.1 million
children under the age of five were targeted in multiple mass immunization
campaigns run by the Somali health authorities, with the support of the United
Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and World Health Organization (WHO) and the
partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). Due to the nature
of the outbreak, in some areas children aged from five to 10 and adults were
also vaccinated to ensure circulation of poliovirus was stopped.
“Child and health experts from WHO and
UNICEF, together with Somali nationals, worked under extremely challenging
security conditions to ensure effective planning, implementation, and
monitoring of 35 vaccination campaigns.” The statement noted.
The new breakthrough came at the cost of
health workers as militants killed two UNICEF workers in a suicide attack in
the Puntland capital Garowe this year.
In Somalia, only around a third of children
are routinely vaccinated, with parents often unaware of the importance of
vaccination or not having the time, means or transport to take their children
to be vaccinated.
Social mobilisers use house to house visits
to inform the local community about upcoming campaigns and the importance of
vaccination, the fact that it is safe and effective and that children should be
vaccinated several times to ensure they are protected for life and adults too
can carry the virus.