Israel: Health Ministry to launch polio vaccination campaign

Israel: Health Ministry to launch polio vaccination campaign

The health ministry will launch a polio vaccination campaign later this week, a senior official said on Sunday.

The move comes after health officials earlier this month confirmed the country’s first case of the potentially debilitating disease in more than 30 years.

Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis, director of public health at the ministry, told Cannes Public Broadcaster that the campaign would aim to complete a two-dose vaccination program for children aged three months to 17 years who have received only one dose.

He pointed out that during the years 2005-2013, vaccination against polio was reduced as the disease was defeated in the country, and many children who have gone through the health system have not received both doses.

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The campaign, called “Two Drops,” will begin later this week in Jerusalem, where cases of the disease were identified, and will then be expanded to the rest of the country.

“We are definitely seeing an outbreak of polio in Israel,” Ms Alroy-Preis said.

Earlier this month, the health ministry confirmed that a mutated form of the virus – which can cause illness in unvaccinated people – was found in a 4-year-old boy in Jerusalem who was not vaccinated against the disease. Was.

Since then, seven cases of polio have been reported in the Jerusalem area, but so far only one has shown symptoms.

The case would be Israel’s first polio diagnosis since 1989, when Israel eradicated the disease through a massive vaccination campaign.

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