Phuket Rotary joins anti-polio effort

PHUKET: Rotary Clubs on the island are joining the Phuket Provincial Health Office (PPHO) in the local effort to eradicate polio.

Rotarians will lend a hand at the PPHO’s upcoming mobile polio vaccination clinics to be held across the island as part of National Immunization Day for Polio Eradication on December 15.

On the day, free polio vaccinations will be available at all government hospitals from 9am to 4pm and at all government schools from 9am to midday.

The PPHO will also send mobile clinics to administer free vaccinations at foreign worker camps and all foster homes on the island.

Ornnida Puttarak, a Public Health official at Vachira Phuket Hospital, told the Gazette, “We have not had any reported cases of polio for over eight years. We have been very good in keeping the disease in check.”

However, she warned that was no reason for health officials to let their guard down. “For countries categorized ‘at risk of infection’, outbreaks of the disease have been found in neighboring countries.

“There are many migrant children here [in Phuket] who may have brought the disease with them, and this may spread to local children,” she said.

As a precaution, the PPHO will freely vaccinate all children under 15 years old, Ms Ornnida explained.

If parents had any doubt as to whether their children had been vaccinated, then do it again, she advised.

“There are no adverse effects of being vaccinated again,” Ms Ornnida said.

— By Samaporn Janyanon