The South African National Department of Health (DoH) will conduct a nationwide polio immunisation campaign on all children below the age of 5 years from the 8th to 14th October 2006. The DoH is making an urgent appeal to parents, guardians, caregivers and the general public, to take all eligible children, irrespective of their immunisation status, to their nearest immunisation points for polio immunisation during this period.
South Africa has been free of wild poliovirus for over 15 years but this does not mean that there is no risk of having a polio outbreak, as was the case recently with Namibia, a country that had been polio free for more than 10 years. The mass polio immunisation campaign forms part of the global efforts to eradicate polio by the year 2008.
It was through immunisation that smallpox, one of the most disfiguring diseases was eradicated. The world is now free of smallpox. In the same way, polio immunisation will set the world free of polio.
