Truce needed to immunise children, IASC says

There is an urgent need to organise “days of tranquility” in the DRC to prevent the failure of global polio eradication efforts, the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) said. In a statement received by IRIN on Tuesday, the high-level humanitarian policy-setting body - composed of UN agencies, ICRC, NGOs and other international organisations - said that if the disease were not soon eradicated from the DRC and other polio-endemic countries at war, “there is a risk that the global polio eradication initiative will fail, leading both to a resurgence of the disease and the loss of the billions of dollars invested so far.”

UNICEF and WHO are working together to eradicate polio from the world by the end of the year 2000. The UN Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC) was designated earlier this year to facilitate the negotiation of a truce between the DRC’s warring parties to allow an estimated 10 million Congolese children under five years to be immunised against the disease on both sides of the conflict. The IASC statement said the two major parties to the conflict had agreed to work with UN agencies in conducting the immunisation campaigns, and it called on the ERC to continue his efforts.

Meanwhile, a regional WHO spokesperson told IRIN on Tuesday that the first round of DRC polio vaccinations had been scheduled for 13-15 August, with two additional rounds to be held in September and October. The third round would also include measles vaccinations, she said.