Health ministry outlines strategies to eradicate polio

Rwanda has put in place three main strategies to fight polio. The three-pillar polio eradication strategy include focusing on achieving and maintaining high vaccination coverage among children aged less than 1 year with at least three doses of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) through routine vaccination. The other is establishing effective epidemiologic and laboratory surveillance systems, with examination of stool specimens from suspected cases of polio and providing supplemental vaccination through national immunisation days to interrupt wild poliovirus transmission, Maurice Gatera, the head of vaccine preventable diseases has said. He made the remarks yesterday ahead of the World Polio Day to be celebrated today. The Polio eradication effort focuses on protect children from the crippling disease. In Rwanda, the last confirmed case of polio was in 1993 in Nyamasheke District. “Immunisation coverage in Rwanda stands at above 95 per cent. Polio vaccination stands at 97 per cent for all Rwandan children under one year,” Gatera said. He added that the benefits are tenfold but there is the long term economic impact with healthcare savings estimated between 40-50 billion US$ in the next 20 years globally. On September 27, 2012, several heads of state as well as officials from donor countries at a United Nations’ meeting pledged to make sure their countries health departments would do everything possible to eradicate polio. The UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said then that every child should have the right to start life with equal protection from this disease. Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, a major donor to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), said then that once “we defeat polio, it will motivate us to aim for other great health and development milestones.” The polio vaccine has been hugely successful. For this year (2013) there were only 170 cases reported compared to 467 last year globally. The vaccine is administered orally and only a few doses will protect children for life. The World Health Organisation seeks to eradicate polio by the year 2018. There are two vaccines available to fight polio – the inactivated poliovirus (IPV) and the oral polio vaccine (OPV). The first polio vaccine was made in 1953.

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Health ministry outlines strategies to eradicate polio