AFGHANISTAN: Countrywide polio vaccination drive under way

Photo: IRIN

The Afghan health ministry jointly with UNICEF launched a nation-wide polio immunisation campaign aiming to reach over 7 million children in the country

KABUL, 18 September 2006 (IRIN) - Over 7 million Afghan children aged under five will be vaccinated against the polio virus during a three-day joint campaign launched on Sunday by the Afghan health ministry, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Afghanistan, one of just four countries in the world where polio is endemic, has seen the number of cases surge this year. There have been 28 confirmed polio cases in 2006, compared to only four in the same period last year, according to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) officials.

Nearly all of this year’s polio cases have been recorded in southern Afghanistan, which is going through a deadly phase of Taliban-led violence. MoPH officials said Kandahar was leading the list with 16 cases; Helmand registered six cases and Urozgan two cases, with Zabul and Farah each having one case this year.

The deteriorating security in the south has been one of the most significant challenges for health workers in their drive to fully implement the polio immunisation on the ground, analysts say.

During the vaccination drive, which is led by the MoPH, with the support of UNICEF and WHO, some 45,000 health workers and volunteers will go house-to-house to administer the oral vaccine across the country, explained MoPH spokesman Abdullah Fahim.

“We hope all people, including government officials, community elders and those involved in fighting [the virus], particularly in the south of the country, will ensure a safe environment for the complete implementation of the polio vaccination campaign,” Fahim remarked.

Along with receiving the polio vaccine, some 7 million children aged between six months and five years will also get vitamin A supplements, which help to boost resistance to other childhood diseases, MoPH officials said.

“The vitamin A supplements will boost children’s immunity against various respiratory tract infections as the winter gets closer,” Dr Shukurallah Wahidi, head of preventive medicine at MoPH, said.

Meanwhile, following recent polio cases in western Herat and central Bamyan provinces, WHO officials warned that the virus was spreading in the country.

“Polio is entering into an alarming stage in Afghanistan while insecurity is not allowing us to go safely and vaccinate all the children in the south,” Dr Tahir Mir, medical officer for polio vaccination at the WHO, told IRIN from Kandahar.

“The MoPH and its partners WHO and UNICEF are trying their best to have proper access to all children during this round of vaccination,” Mir maintained.

Unregulated travel to and from Pakistan, where polio still exists, difficulty in establishing health services, a lack of awareness and poor communication with community leaders were the main factors fuelling polio's spread in the impoverished Central Asian state, health officials said.

According to WHO, polio is a highly infectious virus that invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in hours. It can strike at any age but mainly affects children aged under five. It enters the human body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine. Besides Afghanistan polio remains endemic in Nigeria, India and Pakistan.

SM/JL/AT