MAKKAH: Makkah Health Affairs is coducting a three-day polio vaccination campaign beginning with the first dose from March 23 and the second scheduled from the three days beginning April 30. “A public awareness campaign will also be run in tandem with the doses,” said Hesham Bashawri, Assistant Director of Health Affairs in Makkah. He said that although the World Health Organization has declared the Kingdom polio- free, authorities are “maintaining strict polio immunization precautions to prevent any future outbreaks”. “There has not been a single case of polio since the early 1990s, except for the case in 2004 of a child that came with his family to perform Umrah,” Bashawri said. Polio is caused by the highly infectious enterovirus poliovirus, which mainly affects children and is spread in direct person-to-person contact through infected mucus or contact with food and water contaminated with feces. “The virus multiplies in the gastrointestinal tract where it can also invade the nervous system, causing permanent neurological damage. That can sometimes affect all four limbs causing quadriplegia,” he said.
