Polio-free campaign launched

Angola launched a drive at the weekend to vaccinate three million children under-five against polio - with the support of the country's girl and boy scout movement. The signing of Angola's ceasefire in April has, for the first time in years, opened up areas throughout the country that were previously inaccessible for polio National Immunisation Day (NIDs) campaigns, the UN children's agency UNICEF said in a report. At the weekend, 30,000 volunteers - including 7,000 girl and boy scouts - helped to ensure that hundreds of thousands of children, including those in the newly accessible areas, were vaccinated. Angola is one of only eight countries in the world in which the wild polio virus is still present. UNICEF reported that mobilisers, spreading the word about NIDs, had to assure quizzical mothers that the vaccine was both free and safe. The door-to-door campaign to make Angola polio-free by 2005, aimed to provide all children under-five with two drops of the vaccine at the weekend, with follow up doses in July and August. UNICEF this year provided 17 million polio vaccines to the Ministry of Health, along with storage equipment. UNICEF also contributed technical support for the NIDs, and helped with social mobilisation through mainly radio programmes. For a UNICEF colour feature on NIDs