Myanmar carries out major vaccination campaign against polio

Myanmar launched a two-day nationwide campaign of polio vaccinations in attempt to eradicate the disease among children under 5 years old.

In Yangon’s south Okkala township, nurses and medical staff from local hospitals joined the campaign on Sunday, the second day of the campaign, setting up 20 medical visiting stations to provide the oral polio vaccine (OPV) drop to more than two thousand 2,000 children in the area.

Dozens of children under five were given the vaccine in one of the stations during just one hour on Sunday morning.

“I became afraid of polio for my children when I heard polio was found in Rakhine State. And the nurses also asked for my baby to take the vaccination,” said Lay Lay Thwe, a 33-year-old muslim mother of a four-month-old baby boy.

Myanmar’s Ministry of Health recently found two polio cases in children in Rakhine State. The ministry has set up this campaign in attempt to announce Myanmar as polio free country in 2016.

“We are doing this campaign so that we can announce ‘Polio Free’ in our country. We are giving the polio vaccine to under children under five years now,” said nurse, Daw Naw Beauty.

Myanmar expects about 4.5 million children under five to access to the oral polio vaccine during the campaign before changing to a vaccine injection in the next campaign.

When replaced, children will only need one vaccine injection instead of three sets of the oral polio vaccine.

Myanmar was one of 10 Asian countries which had been declared polio-free in 2014 by the World Health Organisation.