Good response to polio immunisation campaign

The second round of a national polio immunisation campaign, conducted last Saturday and Sunday, drew "a very good response", a UN official told IRIN on Wednesday. While statistics from the country's 45 districts were still coming in, the organisers were "very optimistic that it will be over 90 percent coverage, as in other years," John Barenzi, manager of the UN Expanded Programme for Immunisation (EPI) said. The first round was completed on 7-8 August. Problems with the campaign were reported in four southwestern districts - Rakai, Mbarara, Bushenyi and Ntungamo - as a result of "negative propaganda from an FM station in the area," but the exercise still had good results there thanks to intensified social mobilisation, he said. "We are on the right track to eradicating the polio virus," Barenzi told IRIN, adding that analysis of quite a few suspected samples had revealed no new incidence of polio this year. The experimental introduction of a measles vaccine alongside the polio had been tried in two districts in the second immunisation round and proven successful, he said. Supplementary sub-national campaigns in areas along Uganda's long borders with Sudan and the DRC would be organised to reduce the chances of the spread of polio through population movement, Barenzi added.