22 August 2006

The directorate Community Services is preparing for a Polio campaign during the month of October. This campaign was planned for 2007, but was forwarded by National Department of Health to 2006 because of the polio outbreak in Namibia.

This also serves as a reminder to Mogale City communities on the importance of having their children vaccinated on time. The countdown to certify South Africa as a Polio free country was launched in 2003. For this to take we need to comply to the following:

• 90% of all children under 1 year to receive 4 polio vaccination.
• Any child under 15 years who has a sudden paralysis of a limb to be tested for polio. It has to be laboratory proven that the paralysis is not due to polio.
• We also need to immunize 90% of all children under 5 during the National Polio campaign.

The immunization will make sure that not one of our children suffer from permanent paralysis, having to walk with calipers for the rest of their lives. Bring your precious child to the clinic to be vaccinated. This polio virus is not selective nature, it will, on finding an unprotected victim, cause polio.