Polio vaccination campaign begins

A three-day country-wide polio vaccination campaign designed to eradicate a disease which has left thousands of children crippled, was launched in Pakistan on Tuesday, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official told IRIN. "The country is now on the verge of eradicating polio," the WHO medical officer for polio eradication, Dr Anthony Mounts said in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. "We expect to eradicate the disease by the end of this year if we can carry out high-quality immunisation rounds this spring and fall," he maintained. With a population of over 140 million, Pakistan has made significant progress towards attaining polio-free status. This week's campaign would specifically target hard access areas such as urban slums, in addition to extending immunisation coverage to refugees in the country. To be successful, however, every child in the country, or some 30 million children under the age of five, regardless of social class, living conditions, or previous vaccination status, needs to be vaccinated during the next three days. Asked how realistic that target was, Mounts maintained the resources were there and they were reaching 90 to 95 percent in some areas - sometimes more. "If we can do that, it means it's achievable," he said, adding they were trying to identify high risk groups or difficult-to-reach population pockets. Some groups are more difficult to access, including Afghan and other minority groups, he explained. Although polio is not a fatal disease, in most cases it results in severe and permanent disability. Children less than five years of age are most susceptible. The disease is not curable, but vaccination ensures its eradication and prevents it from spreading. Mounts maintained that before the polio vaccination campaigns were initiated in the early 1990s, the disease left thousands of Pakistani children crippled every year. "We had 116 cases in 2001, and towards the end of this year we may see the last case," he said. Densely populated urban areas are most prone to the spread of the virus. "You need excellent vaccinations in cities like Quetta and Karachi," he explained, adding that "good" campaigns in sparsely populated rural areas may prevent the disease from spreading there, but are not "good enough" for the urban areas.