The public in the Littoral Region has been urged to practise hygienic and preventive measures.

Eradicating poliomyelitis among children below five years is a public health priority in Cameroon. The first phase of immunisation against the disease for 2015 kick-starts today, January 30, and lasts till February 1 across the country.

The campaigns target 5,683,481 children of ages between zero and 59 months across the 10 regions. In Douala where no case of poliomyelitis has been detected in the last six months, Public Health authorities gave a news briefing during which parents were urged to ensure that the children concerned are vaccinated by the teams that will visit homes, schools, markets, churches, motor parks, and tollgates, among others. They were also advised to continue to have their children immunised in health centres after each phase of immunisation campaign according to the vaccination calendar.

“Since five polio cases were detected on July 9, 2014, no case has again been detected in the Littoral,” revealed Jacques Georges Otti, Head of the Regional Unit of the Expanded Programme of Immunisation. The public was encouraged to practise hygienic and preventive measures such as washing of hands with soap before eating and after visiting toilets. They were also informed of the need to boil or use other means of purifying water before drinking, wash fruits, vegetables with drinkable water before they are consumed, avoid urination or excretion in the open, as well as immunizing their children against polio at all times.

As concerns the country, poliomyelitis cases were detected in Malantouen and Foumbot in the West, Kribi in the South, Yaounde in the Centre, Kumbo in the North West, Ngaoundere and Bankim in the Adamawa, and Yoko and Kette in the East Regions in 2014.