Acting Minister of Health and Population Khaled Abdel Ghaffar announced on Tuesday that a national campaign to vaccinate children against polio for free across the country will run from 27 to 30 March. Hossam Abdel Ghaffar — the Official Spokesperson for the ministry — stated that the campaign aims to vaccinate all children — Egyptian and foreign — from one day to five years old living in the country. The campaign will include 45,000 medical teams comprising 90,000 members trained at the highest level in addition to supervisory teams at all levels in the ministry, health directorates, departments, and medical districts. He further explained that vaccinations will be carried out through fixed teams at health offices, units, and medical centres nationwide, in addition to gathering places, markets, major squares, train stations, bus stops, metro stations, and commercial malls. Moreover, Head of the Preventive Medicine Sector Amr Kandil noted that the campaign will also go door to door in all governorates, villages, and remote areas. He added that the campaign is being carried out with the participation and cooperation of all concerned parties, including the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Social Solidarity, and Al-Azhar to facilitate vaccination in kindergartens and nurseries. The Ministry of Endowments and churches will also be included in the campaign to raise awareness among citizens and to ensure coverage of 100% of the children targeted by the campaign in all governorates. Kandil called on all families to go to the nearest team of the national polio vaccination campaign to vaccinate their children in order to preserve their health and prevent them from contracting the disease. He also stressed that vaccinations are safe and free of charge, highlighting the necessity for considering all preventive and precautionary measures against the coronavirus during the implementation of the campaign's work. The last recorded case of poliomyelitis in Egypt was recorded in 2004, according to the World Health Organisation.
