DUSHANBE, May 24, 2011, Asia-Plus — On May 23, the Ministry of Health, with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, initiated a national polio vaccination campaign aimed at preventing future outbreaks of the disease.
According to U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe, United States Ambassador to Tajikistan Ken Gross, Deputy Minister of Health Azamjon Mirzoyev, United States Agency for the International Development (USAID) Global Polio Coordinator Ellyn Ogden, representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Tajikistan Pavel Ursu, and representative of UNICEF in Tajikistan Hongwei Gao, all participated in a press conference to launch the campaign.
Deputy Minister Mirzoyev officially announced the beginning of National Immunization Days, May 23-27, which will be the second round of national immunizations in 2011 and said: “During last year’s polio outbreak, the Ministry of Health reported 705 cases of Acute Flaccid Paralysis for wild poliovirus type 1, of which 458 are laboratory confirmed. Cases have been confirmed in 35 of 67 administrative territories. The Ministry conducted several vaccination rounds in the last year: two rounds for children ages 0-5, four vaccination rounds for children ages 0-15, and one mop-up vaccination in the 35 affected districts. Today, health workers all over the country are ready to vaccinate about 1.2 million children ages 0-5. I would like to encourage all parents with children of this age to visit their health facility this week and get them vaccinated.”
The United States, the WHO, UNICEF, and other development partners are collaborating with the Ministry of Health to prevent future polio outbreaks in Tajikistan. The United States government has contributed approximately $1,365,000 to this fight.
Ambassador Gross remarked: “The U.S. government supports Tajikistan’s Ministry of Health through many activities, but pays special attention to maternal and child health. The Ministry responded in a timely and professional manner to last year’s polio outbreak, and there has been a tremendous effort to immunize all children throughout the country with the life-saving polio vaccine.”
USAID awarded several grants to the WHO for emergency polio immunization campaigns. The USAID activities support the Ministry of Health to strengthen vaccine preventable disease surveillance, outbreak control, and pro-active measures to prevent potential outbreaks of vaccine preventable diseases.
USAID’s response to the polio outbreak in Tajikistan is one of the many assistance projects provided by the USAID. Since 1992 the U.S. Embassy in Dushanbe has provided more than $900 million in programs that support Tajikistan’s democratic institutions, health care, education, and economic growth.
