AP Features, April 25th, 2007
Health authorities in a southern Bangladeshi border district are vaccinating thousands of children against polio following reports of a new case in neighboring Myanmar, an official said Wednesday.
Authorities in Cox's Bazar reinforced efforts to prevent cross-border infections after the World Health Organization recently warned Bangladesh about a 3-year-old boy who was diagnosed with polio in Myanmar's Rakhine _ or Arakan _ state, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) across the border, local public health chief Dr. Mortaza Reza Hassan said.
The health department, with help from international health and donor agencies, has set up vaccination centers at five points along the Naf River, which forms the border, and at three camps for refugees and illegal immigrants from Myanmar, also known as Burma, Hassan said.
Health workers and volunteers are concentrating on immunizing children under the age of five at transit points along a 45-kilometer (28-mile) stretch of the river, where about 300 people cross daily. They also plan to visit two refugee camps and an immigrants' settlement over the next week to check for children who missed being vaccinated on a routine nationwide immunization day earlier this month.
Hassan said there are about 114,000 children under the age of five in the border areas of Teknaf and Ukhia in Cox's Bazar, 300 kilometers (185 miles) south of the capital, Dhaka.
Polio resurfaced in Bangladesh last year after a nearly six-year absence, forcing the government to launch a new series of immunization campaigns in April 2006.
About 22 million children age 5 and under were vaccinated during the latest national immunization day on April 8. Another round of nationwide vaccinations was conducted March 2. Similar immunization days were also held last year.
The polio virus attacks the nervous system and can cause permanent paralysis. It can be fatal in some cases.
About 1,526 people were afflicted by polio worldwide in 2006, down from more than 350,000 before 1988, when WHO launched a global anti-polio campaign.
About 21,000 Myanmar refugees, mostly Muslims from Rakhine state who fled Myanmar's military regime in the early 1990s, live in two official camps in Cox's Bazar. Another 10,000 Myanmar Muslims, also called Rohingyas, who crossed the border illegally and are considered economic migrants live in shanties along the Naf River.
