Anti-polio vaccination in Cuba

By María Josefina Arce

It is from that year on that the anti-polio vaccination campaign would be carried out annually throughout the national territory, a collective effort, since it has the participation of the entire society from health workers to family members and organizations such as the Federation of Cuban Women and the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.

Precisely in that first campaign, the support of the CDR, created two years before, was essential. More than 100,000 of its members mobilized to carry out a census of the population to be vaccinated, which at that time was made up of children from one month old to 14 years old.

No minor in that age range was left without being immunized. The vaccination teams, made up of health personnel and volunteers from various spheres, reached the most remote places in the national geography.

More than six decades have passed since that historic moment, which would mark the way forward in the prevention of various diseases such as poliomyelitis, which before January 1959 was an endemic disease that left approximately 300 minors with paralysis each year in the country. because of the illness.

Not even in the most adverse economic conditions, given the criminal North American blockade, has Cuba stopped immunizing its children. Without a doubt, the support over the years from PAHO, the Pan American Health Organization, has been invaluable in this purpose.

COVID 19 was not an impediment either. Respecting the strictest security measures to care for minors and family members, the country carried out its usual immunization plan.

And precisely this week the sixty-third anti-polio campaign takes place, which includes infants from one month old to those who have not yet turned three years old.

Next June, the second stage will take place, in which the second dose will be given to those who received the first and a reactive dose will be administered to children 9 years of age.

Currently, every Cuban under 70 years of age is protected against this disease. In more than six decades, tens of millions of doses have been administered, an example of the government's commitment to keeping the country polio-free.