Polio campaign targets 5.9 million children

A campaign to immunise nearly six million children against polio in Sudan started on Monday in the western region of Darfur despite ongoing threats of clashes between government forces, militias and rebels in the area. The three-day campaign got off to a successful start with none of the teams of vaccinators reporting security incidents, the UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS) reported. "So far, we have not received any reports of hostilities," Radia Achouri, spokeswoman for UNAMIS, told IRIN on Tuesday from Khartoum. "It seems the rebels and the government are respecting our ceasefire request." The UN Secretary-General's envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, had last week urged the government and rebel groups in the conflict-ridden region to suspend military activity so that the campaign could take place safely. The campaign is part of a nationwide exercise that would, apart from targeting northern Sudan and the Darfur states, also start in the south on 17 January. "The campaign is targeting 5.9 million children under the age of five across Sudan," Florence Kimanzi, Assistant Communication Officer of UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) told IRIN. Pronk's deputy, Manuel Aranda da Silva, who travelled to Darfur to launch the campaign on Monday, said he hoped the days of tranquillity for the polio immunization, as well as the recently signed comprehensive peace agreement for south Sudan, would build a momentum towards peace in Darfur. The comprehensive peace agreement between the government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) was signed on Sunday in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. The executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), Carol Bellamy, hailed the agreement, saying it should give children top priority. Helped by some 40,000 volunteers, the UN World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, various NGOs and the Sudanese health ministry plan to vaccinate every child under the age of five, across Africa's largest country. Two further doses of the polio vaccine will then be administered at six-week intervals in February and April. The immunisation campaign was designed after WHO statistics revealed that Sudan had 105 identified cases of polio in 2004, the third highest in the world after Nigeria and India. Cases were reported in 17 of Sudan's 26 states. Forty cases were discovered in Khartoum, while Darfur registered another 17. Achouri said the risk of polio was particularly urgent because children had become more vulnerable to the disease as insecurity and widespread population movements had resulted in incomplete immunization campaigns in the past. Polio - poliomyelitis - is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus that affects mainly children under three years of age. It invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.