Polio Vaccination in Sistan

Under a vaccination program that began yesterday (January 14), 492,000 children under five years of age will be vaccinated against polio in Iran’s southeastern Sistan-Baluchistan Province. “The program will be carried out in two phases by universities of medical sciences in the province as well as in other subtropical regions,” said Dr. Mehdi Tabatabai, head of the provincial health department and vice chancellor of Zahedan University of Medical Sciences. The program will be underway until January 19 in the first phase, and February 18-22 in the second phase in the provinces of Khuzestan, Bushehr, Hormozgan, Fars, Kerman, and South Khorasan as well as Sistan-Baluchestan, ISNA reported. Although polio has been contained in Iran since 2001, the virus can be transmitted from across the borders where not enough people may have been immunized due to impediments such as illiteracy and lack of information.