CESTOS, River Cess – The River Cess County Health Team and its partners have ended the fourth and final immunization campaign for 2016.

The River Cess County Health Team said it was targeting 14,178 children under five years of age to be immunized against polio.

During the campaign, Augustine Tehteh, a representative of the health team, told The Bush Chicken that children would also receive vitamin A, medication meant to treat parasitic worms, and other substances to boost their immune systems.

“Our target for the worm medicine are 10,978 children ages 12-59 months, and for the vitamin A, we are targeting children ages 6-59 months,” Tehteh said.

“We have 60 teams of two members each that will go to the various homes to administer the vaccines,” he added.

Both Last Mile Health, an NGO partnering with the River Cess County Health Team, and the World Health Organization’s River Cess office provided logistical support for the campaign.

The campaign ran from Friday, Oct. 28 to Monday, Oct. 31 and is part of the World Health Organization’s strategy to intensify the prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases, in order to reduce childhood mortality and disability.

After the recent Ebola outbreak and the accompanying halt in vaccination campaigns, health authorities were concerned about the potential for the resurgence of diseases that primarily affect children.

In early October, Nimba health workers reported six suspected cases of polio. The samples are still being tested. Last week, Margibi officials confirmed the second outbreak of measles in the county this year.

Featured photo by Eric Duoe