N'DJAMENA, March 25 (Xinhua) - The Chadian Ministry of Public Health on Saturday launched a massive vaccination campaign against polio across the country.
The campaign, which will last four days, targets 3.3 million children aged 0-59 months.
Chad has not recorded any new cases of polio since June 2012. To permanently eradicate the epidemic, the Chadian government, with the support of its technical and financial partners, introduced a new inactivated vaccine in August 2015 for children from 3 to 11 months.
Chad was certified as a polio-free country on June 30, 2016, but the risk of spreading the virus remains high. The Chadian authorities and partners remain committed to continuing efforts to strengthen the vaccination and epidemiological surveillance program in order to maintain this status.
With the introduction of the inactivated polio vaccine into routine immunization, Chad intends to meet the 2018 global certification.
United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO) are supporting the government of Chad in the procurement and transport of vaccines, the implementation and evaluation of field activities, especially training health workers at community level to promote vaccination among the most vulnerable population.
