Havana, March 9 (RHC)-– Over half a million Cuban children will receive a vaccination against polio during the 54th National Polio Vaccination Campaign, which will run in Cuba from March 8th through the 15th and from April 27th to May 3rd.

Cuba began the first campaign of this kind in 1962. Since then, the country has administered 79 million doses of polio vaccine so that the population of the country under the age of 68 is protected against the disease. Before the time of the revolution, polio was a serious health problem in Cuba.

Cuba received the Certificate of Poliomyelitis Eradication by the Pan American Health Organization and the International Commission for the Certification Poliomyelitis Eradication on April 9, 1995. Cuba has also eliminated eight other infectious diseases – whooping cough, neonatal tetanus, measles, mumps meningoencephalitis, malaria, rubella, diphtheria and congenital rubella syndrome.

Polio is caused by a germ that lives in the intestines and throat that is spread through stool contact of an infected person. While most infected with the polio virus have no symptoms, some who become infected can become paralyzed.