The Associate Dean of the College of Medicine for Scientific Affairs, Prof. Dr. Ali Abdulredha Abu Tahin, specializing in family and community medicine, participated in the review and evaluation team of the surveillance program for poliovirus and cases of acute flaccid paralysis in Iraq for the period from 20 to 27 January 2023.
This was in coordination with the Ministry of Health and the Middle East Network for Community Health EMPHNET.
As a result, a two-day training workshop was held in Baghdad, after which a number of interviews and field visits were conducted to a number of institutions in the Holy Karbala Health Department.
The aim of this review is to review the progress of the program and its efficiency in investigation, and to identify strengths and weaknesses and any obstacles that the program may encounter.
The visits included the Department of Public Health, the Division of Communicable Diseases, the Center and Al-Hussainiya Healthcare Sectors, in addition to Karbala Children’s Teaching Hospital and Al-Hussainiya General Hospital, as well as the environmental investigation sampling site from one of the sewage stations, and then presenting the audit results.
The investigation and surveillance program for the virus and cases of acute flaccid paralysis is of great importance, despite the significant decline in the number of polio cases in the world. However, the virus is still present, and imported cases may occur, as they did in 2014 in Iraq.
On the other hand, the continuation of vaccination of children under the age of five, as in Iraq, the oral vaccine is given in addition to two doses of the virus injected intramuscularly.
