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The Mozambican Ministry of Health on Monday announced an emergency polio vaccination campaign that will be held from 8 to 12 February in selected districts of the central provinces of Zambezia, Sofala and Tete.
Mozambique was declared free of polio in July last year. Nonetheless epidemiological surveillance was stepped up in all health units to detect any possible reappearance of the polio virus.
Speaking at a Maputo press conference on Monday, the National Director of Public Health, Francisco Mbofana, announced that in late November one case of polio was identified in a seven year old boy in Derre district, in Zambezia.
A team was dispatched to Derre to investigate the case in detail, and to take samples from anyone the boy may have contacted. So far the Ministry has received results from three of these samples, sent to a regional reference laboratory in South Africa, and all were negative. Laboratory results from a further 23 samples are awaited, and should be received within three weeks.
Although the Derre case may be isolated, the Health Ministry has opted for a “shock” campaign to cover half a million children under the age of five. Under fives are the age group most vulnerable to polio.
The purpose is to protect all young children living in the area where the sole confirmed case was detected – essentially the lower Zambezi valley. The districts to be covered are Derre, Chinde, Luabo, Mopeia, Morrumbala, Mocuba, Lugela, Namacurra, Inhassunge and Nicoadala in Zambezia; Caia and Marromeu in Sofala; and Mutarara in Tete.
To cover as many children as possible, the Ministry will adopt a door-to-door campaign. Mbofana stressed that the oral vaccine used is safe, and can even be administered to sick children.
The polio vaccine is included in the routine vaccinations given to children in health units at birth, and when they are two, three and four months old. But the case in Derre alerted the health authorities to the need for an emergency campaign in the lower Zambezi districts, which are among those with the lowest routine vaccination coverage.
Mbofana also said that from 1 to 27 January about 28,000 cases of diarrhoea were notified across the country, of which eight resulted in death (a lethality rate of 0.03 per cent). This is a 37 per cent reduction in reported cases when compared with the same period in 2016. Then there were 44,500 cases and 20 deaths (a lethality rate of 0.04 per cent).
In most provinces the number of diarrhoea cases declined. The exceptions were Inhambane (Inhambane city and Inhassoro district), Manica (Chimoio city and Machaze and Manica districts), Maputo city (Nhamankulu urban district) and Maputo province (Boane, Manhica and Marracuene districts).
There was a smaller reduction in malaria cases over the same four week period. 268,940 cases of malaria were diagnosed from 1 to 27 January 2016, and 248,733 cases in 2017 – a decline of 7.5 per cent. There were 38 malaria deaths in January 2016 (a lethality rate of 0.03 per cent), and 30 deaths in 2017 (a lethality rate of 0.02 per cent).
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