Blantyre District Director of Health and Social Services, Dr. Gift Kawalazira has said Blantyre is set to vaccinate 667, 375 under 15 children in a three-day Polio vaccination campaign set to roll out on July 12 to Saturday, July 15.
He said this on Tuesday at Blantyre District Health Office (DHO) during a Polio Vaccination Campaign media briefing.
Kawalazira said the campaign is aimed at ensuring that children are protected from Polio disease observing that some of them are harboring the virus in their bodies hence the need to protect them.
“This will be a door-to-door campaign just to be sure that each and every household has been reached with the vaccine, so I am appealing to parents and guardians to ensure that children that are under 15 years of age are being presented to our health workers to receive this vaccine.
“This is a very important thing considering that some of our children have been detected with the virus. Not only that, our neighbouring countries especially Mozambique are detecting a lot of children with the virus and since Malawi is surrounded by this country it is good to ensure that children in the country are protected,” he said.
Blantyre District Expanded Programme in Immunization Coordinator, Myless Mhango said the vaccination would be administered orally and every child who has received the vaccine would be finger marked.
She urged parents and guardians to ensure that their children are vaccinated during the campaign saying Polio has no cure and prevention through vaccination is the only way to go.
