DUSHANBE, May 11, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Polio vaccine used in Tajikistan is efficacious, Tajik Head Sanitary Physician Azam Mirzoyev said, denying reports by some Russian media that the polio vaccine used in Tajikistan is allegedly inefficient against the wild poliovirus detected in the country.

“Strain of type 1 poliovirus has been detected in the country and we have chosen this vaccine upon recommendations of the World Health Organization (WHO),” Tajik health official said.

In the meantime, Shamsiddi Jobirov, Head of Tajikistan’s Republican Immunoprophylactic Center, noted that no bans on exit of Russian children under the age of six had been introduced in Tajikistan.  “We have just limited exit of children under the age of six from the country in connection with a national three-round polio immunization campaign that will be completed on June 5-6,” he said.

According to him, all children under the age of six must receive triple polio vaccine without fail.  The first round of the national immunization campaign against polio took place on May 4-8, 2010 and will be followed by another two rounds on May 18-22 and June1-5.  “There is no question of any ban; it is just talked of undergoing the prescribed vaccination,” Jobirov said.

On the allegations by Gennady Onishchenko, Head of Russia’s Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Protection and Welfare, that the vaccine used in Tajikistan could be inefficient against the wild poliovirus, Jobirov noted that the vaccine used in Tajikistan was a mono-vaccine against antigenic type 1 poliovirus that had been detected in Tajikistan.  “Earlier, Tajik children had received vaccine against types 1, 2 and 3 poliovirus,“ he noted.

The Immunoprophylactic Center head added that 1,130,475 children under the age of 6 had been vaccinated during the first round of the national polio immunization campaign, which was 99.6 percent of the targeted population.