CAMAGUEY.- Over 24 thousand children under three years of age in Camaguey will be benefited by the second stage of the National Anti-Polio Campaign while the Vaccination of the Americas Week is being held in Cuba for the first time.

The second dose of the vaccine will be administrated orally from April 23rd to the 28th, while some 8 thousand 445 children up to 11 years of age, 11 months and 29 days will be administered the reactivation of the vaccine.

Alina Tejeda, responsible for the vaccination campaign in the territory told ACN, on the importance for the parents to take their children to the policlinics and family doctors’ offices located in 31 health centers in the area.

When this phase is concluded, a second week will continue with the objective of vaccinating the children that did not receive the two oral drops.

Cuba is the first nation in Latin America to be declared free of polio since 1962, infection inflicted by a virus that attacks the spinal cord and causes muscular atrophy and paralysis.

The 16th Vaccination in the Americas Week is celebrated in the continent and in the province of Camaguey, the largest territory in extension in the country, as well as the rest of the island with different activities in health promotion and education.

Accordring to the website of the Pan American Health Organization, as part of the initiative, over 700 million people of all ages have been vaccinated in the region since 2003 against six preventable diseases: chicken pox, tetanus, German measles, diphtheria, polio and flu.