The Ministry of Health (Misau) will start next Thursday a new national vaccination campaign against polio. The process, which ends on Sunday, is expected to cover about 7.8 million children aged up to five years.

This new campaign comes after four confirmed cases of polio in Tete province, allegedly imported from Malawi, according to the director of Misau's expanded vaccination program, Leonildo Nhampossa.

"Tete province will have a special attention, because it is where cases [of the virus] were confirmed in the districts of Changara, Moatize, Tsangano and Magoé, when the surveillance activities for acute flaccid paralysis and vaccination against polio were intensified," he said

During the third round of immunization the country vaccinated about 7.8 million children. The campaign started on July 6 and health authorities had planned to vaccinate 6.8 million children under the age of five.

The first phase was launched in March, after polio was detected in neighboring Malawi, and the second phase took place in April.

In May, the first case of polio in Mozambique since 1992 was confirmed in Tete, an inland province bordering Malawi.

Polio is an infectious disease with no cure that mainly affects children under the age of five and can only be prevented by vaccination. In some cases, it can cause paralysis of limbs.