AP Features, September 22nd, 2007
Volunteer health workers have launched a massive polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan's violent southern region after assurances of safe passage, UNICEF said Saturday.
Vaccinators are working in unstable areas of Kandahar and Helmand provinces with the help of Kandahar's governor and local elders, who worked to ensure the health workers could travel safely, said Catherine Mbengue, UNICEF representative in Afghanistan.
"So far we have not had any reports of any incidents contrary to what has happened in each (previous) campaign," said Mbengue, who went door-to-door with vaccinators in Kandahar.
Health workers have been abducted in the past, but Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi has said the militants would allow the workers access in southern Afghanistan for the current vaccination campaign.
The vaccinators had not been able to work in parts of Helmand province _ the region that has seen the heaviest fighting between the Taliban and international forces _ for a year and a half, Mbengue said. "This is an incredible, happy development," she said.
About 10,000 vaccinators began the weeklong campaign Wednesday, aiming to vaccinate 1.3 million children in the country.
On International Peace Day, which was held Friday, "we were able to see that vaccination was taking place all over the country," Mbengue said.
Afghanistan is one of four countries _ along with Pakistan, India and Nigeria _ that suffers endemic polio, a preventable disease that can cause paralysis in children.
Mbengue said there have been nine polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all of them in the south and east. Last year there were 29 cases, 21 of them in the south.
She said she hopes that because UNICEF has been able to reach previously inaccessible districts, the number of cases will be lower than last year.
The World Health Organization registered 1,999 polio cases around the world last year, up from 1,749 in 2005. The vast majority of cases were in the endemic countries.
Polio mainly affects children under age 5. It is spread when unvaccinated people come into contact with the feces of those with the virus, often through water. It usually attacks the nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and sometimes death.
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On the Net:
Global Polio Eradication Initiative: http://www.polioeradication.org/
