Polio vaccination campaign kicks off

Sierra Leone President Ahmad Tejan Kabbah on Saturday launched a nationwide polio vaccination campaign, a World Health Organisation (WHO) official in Freetown told IRIN. The launch was also attended by Revolutionary United Front (RUF) leader Foday Sankoh and Johnny Paul Koroma, head of the former Armed Forces Revolutionary Council (AFRC), the military junta that ruled Sierra Leone from May 1997 to February 1998. The campaign will target 800,000 children under the age of five over a period of five days and is a major step forward in the global fight to eradicate polio, according to a statement issued by WHO’s headquarters in Geneva. Sierra Leone is the last country to begin a nationwide polio eradication campaign. “As we are behind other countries the second and third phases of the campaign will be launched in November and December,” the WHO official in Freetown said. The campaign involves thousands of health workers and volunteers. It is one of the first national civilian undertakings in Sierra Leone since 7 July, when the RUF and the government signed an agreement in Lome to end an eight-year rebel war. WHO, UNICEF and Rotary International are spearheading a global campaign to eradicate polio by next year. Since 1998, when this goal was set, the estimated number of paralytic polio cases worldwide has fallen from almost 400,000 to 20,000, WHO said.