The Minister of Health, Hala Zayed, announced on Sunday that the number of children who took the vaccination against poliomyelitis in 2018 has increased to reach over 95% of newborns, within the framework of the national campaign for vaccination against poliomyelitis. Zayed further explained that the number of vaccinated children reached 1.9 million infants, from January to October 2018. The ministry of health's spokesperson, Khaled Mogahed, stated that the national campaign for vaccination against poliomyelitis, which was conducted by the ministry from 11 to 14 February 2018, vaccinated 16,365,498 newborns, from birth until the age of five. Mogahed stated that the campaign achieved 101.5% of its target. Mogahed further added that the ministry provided the vaccines to school students, as the ministry aims to vaccinate a number of 4.2 million sudents against meningitis in 2019. For his part, Alaa Eid, the head of Preventive Medicine Department at the ministry of health, pointed out that the ministry began the national campaign for vaccination against poliomyelitis. The campaign will be launched on 24 February 2019, and will last for four days. The campaign targets newborns till children aged five years, and includes all children in Egypt, including non-Egyptian children. The campaign targets 16.5 million children in order to keep Egypt safe from poliomyelitis. The last registered case of poliomyelitis in Egypt was registered 14 years ago, according to Mogahed. He added that the ministry is conducting annual vaccination campaigns to ensure raising the immunity of children.
