DUSHANBE. May 27. “Asia-Plus” — 6mln 350 doses of monovalent polio vaccine for children and teens under 16 years of age will be delivered to Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe today from France, Deputy Health Minister of Tajikistan, chief sanitary doctor of the country Azam Mirzoev told the AP.
According to him, a two-phase vaccination will cover 3 million children and teens. “Immunization of children and teens under 16 will start the next day after the delivery of vaccine. Tajik medics will not wait till the launch of the third phase of immunization campaign scheduled for June 1-5,” Mirzoev has said.
This shipment of vaccines was purchased with support of UNICEF, PR Officer of UNICEF Office in Tajikistan Alexandr Sadykov told the AP. “Together with transportation vaccine costs $1.1mln. This is the same type of monovalent vaccine purchased from the leading French company and which was delivered to Tajikistan one month ago on April 27,” he stressed.
Meanwhile, chief sanitary doctor of the republic Azam Mirzoev spoke today that polio situation in Tajikistan in the past 3-4 days has stabilized and the outburst is decreasing. According to him, only three patients with polio symptoms were registered by Tajik medical institutions in the reporting period. “Earlier Tajik medical institutions used to register from 6 to 7 patients with polio symptoms every day,” he noted.
According to him, on Tuesday, May 26, Tajik Health Ministry received results of polio tests from Moscow, according to which, ten more patients were tested positive.
“Thus, the total number of patients infected with poliomyelitis makes 139 and another 470 still have typical polio symptoms,” he said, adding that these are mainly children under 6 years of age. However, a series of teens and even one 40-year-old citizen of the country reportedly have polio symptoms.
On April 27 Tajikistan received the first shipment of nearly 4mln doses of polio vaccines worth $800.000 for immunization of children under 6 years of age.
More than 1mln 130.000 children were covered by first two phases of vaccination (first on May 4-8, second on May 18-22).
