The Health Department has announced that the second round of the polio vaccination will now include all highlands provinces.
This comes following a third reported polio case from Enga Province.
While the Eastern Highlands, Morobe and Madang provinces will start their second round of polio vaccination, the other five highlands provinces will begin their first round of vaccination.
Health Minister Sir Puka Temu, says following the third reported polio case in Enga Province, the vaccination campaign will now be held in 9 provinces.
These will see Enga, Chimbu, Southern Highlands, Western Highlands, Jiwaka. and Hela provinces will have the first round of polio vaccination from August 27 to September 9.
With the completion of the first round of the polio vaccination campaign, Minister Temu, says the first round was a successful campaign that reached 299,683 children in Eastern Highlands, Morobe and Madang Provinces combined.
And while 611,000 doses of oral polio vaccines were procured in July by UNICEEF, for the first round, an additional one million doses were brought in this week for the remaining three rounds.
Meanwhile, Minister Temu also confirmed that the K2million of the allocated K6million for the polio outbreak response has already been released by the government.
The World Health Organization says currently, they are investigating 55 suspected cases detected by the WHO surveillance team.
The Health Department has also announced a nationwide polio vaccination campaign, is planned for the third and fourth round of the campaign.
This is said to be held in September and October, aiming to target more than a million children under the age of five.
UNICEF has also announced, that they are working on procuring an additional 3.2 million doses of oral polio vaccines for the nationwide vaccination.
