Monday, 05 November 2012 08:57 Muna Tesfai
The Ministry of Health in Jonglei State has launched a polio campaign aimed vaccinating all children under the age of five.
Speaking during the Launch, the acting Minister of Health, Stephen Par Kuol, urged all parents to ensure that all the children under 5 years to be vaccinated.
Kuol, added that children who are not vaccinated will not be enrolled into schools.
He emphasized that immunization of children is compulsory according to government policy.
"We are making as a policy that all the children are vaccinated – one way is actually to teach importantance of vaccination is to required – to make it a requirement that you must show us the cards of your child that the child has been vaccinated – if not we must make sure that we get that child vaccinated that is one way to capture those who have been missed because our people most of the time hide – policy is that between 0 and 5 a child must be going through number of vaccinations"
The polio vaccination program is supported by the UNICEF and other UN urgencies.
Meanwhile, in Unity State the Ministry of Health also launched a polio vaccination program today targeting over 30 thousand children under five years.
Speaking during the launch, the state Minister of Health, Chankel Banak, said that the vaccination will begin on Tuesday and will go on for three days.
The representative of World Health Organization in Unity State, Francis Chono said that more than 300 thousand children under five years were immunized against polio in Unity state in March this year.