DUSHANBE, April 27, 2010, Asia-Plus — To-date, 123 cases of acute flaccid paralysis – or weakness and loss of muscle control – have been reported in Tajikistan and only seven of those cases have been confirmed as polio, Deputy Health Minister, Azam Mirzoyev, told Asia-Plus.
According to him, 100 samples of patients with similar symptoms have been sent for testing. “11 children with similar diagnosis have died and only one of them has died from polio,” the deputy minister stressed.
Three million doses of polio vaccine provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF are expected to be delivered from Copenhagen to the country in the near future and all children under age five will be vaccinated against polio irrespective of the fact whether they had been vaccinated before that or not, Mirzoyev stressed.
Tajikistan”s last case of clinically confirmed polio occurred in 1997, and the WHO declared the country polio-free in 2002.
