Second round of nationwide polio campaign begins

The second round of a three-day nationwide campaign to immunise over six million children under the age of five against polio was launched in Afghanistan on Tuesday. On the same day, the UN announced that the country stood on the verge of eradicating the crippling disease. The message came as the United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF reported that no cases of polio had yet been identified in Afghanistan this year. “This year we know that there is no case of polio found in the country, this is the first step towards a polio-free Afghanistan,” said Edward Carwardine, a UNICEF spokesman, noting that a country had to have three consecutive years with no cases of polio in order for it to be declared polio free. Afghanistan is one of the last 10 countries in the world where polio remains endemic and is among the top five priority countries for polio eradication. According to the Afghan health ministry, there were 150 polio cases in Afghanistan in 1999 but only 10 cases identified in 2002. “If we can get through this year’s immunisation campaign which is taking place this week and later on in the year it is a real big step towards saying Afghanistan is free of polio,” Carwardine noted. Tuesday's National Immunisation Day (NID) was designated as a National Day of Unity for Children in Afghanistan and coincided with the launch of a national birth registration campaign. “The link between NIDs and birth registration creates a synergistic potential, to maximise the use of the government’s immunisation expertise to reach every household over a three-day period,” the UNICEF spokesman maintained, adding that volunteers were travelling house-to-house with NIDs vaccination teams to both immunise and register children. UNICEF said the goal of birth registration was to record all children under the age of 1 this year. “Registration is about guaranteeing a child’s right to identity,” said Carwardine, noting that the process helped to ensure that children were immunised and enrolled in school at the right age. This house-to-house approach, and the recording of basic information (name and date of birth of child, and name of child’s parents) will be put on registration cards and later computerised. According to UNICEF, tens of thousands of volunteers are in the field ready to immunise five to six million children and register around one million all over Afghanistan. “There are over 40,000 vaccinators and volunteers, half of which are women in the field aiming to reach every single district and every single house,” Cawardine noted.