According to the director of the local health office, Lucas Nhamba, the 15 cases were reported in the municipalities of Huambo, Caála, Ekunha, Londuimbali and Cachiungo, in previous campaigns, about 5 percent of children were not vaccinated.
The official, quoted by Angop, was speaking at the launch of the provincial polio vaccination campaign, which runs until Sunday, and plans to vaccinate 340,449 children, under the age of five, in the affected municipalities, to cut the transmission chain.
Lucas Nhamba said that sick children were not immunized in previous campaigns, and to avoid infection, others are isolated and being monitored by health authorities.
For this campaign, 430,360 doses of vaccines were made available, which will be administered by 1137 teams composed, each, by a mobilizer / vaccinator and recorder.
At the end of 2019, health authorities announced that the country was facing an outbreak of polio, caused by a live virus attenuated by the oral polio vaccine, which reproduces in the intestines rapidly, and is then excreted in the faeces into the environment, infecting children who are not immunized.
The Ministry of Health carried out vaccination campaigns against polio, to combat the outbreak that had already infected 49 people that year.
Angola did not report cases of polio, an acute contagious disease caused by poliovirus, but in 2019 they again reported cases in the eastern provinces of the country - Lunda Norte, Lunda Sul and Moxico, after which Luanda also registered.
The country was certified by the African Regional Certification Committee as free from the polio virus, with the last five cases being reported in 2011 in the provinces of Uíje and Cuando Cubango.
