KABUL: The Afghan interim government's Ministry of Public Health on Monday announced a four-day vaccination campaign aimed at protecting nearly 6.3 million children under the age of five from poliovirus.
The campaign, scheduled to run from Monday to Thursday, will offer anti-polio drops to children in 16 out of the country's 34 provinces, said Sharafat Zaman Amarkhil, spokesperson for the ministry.
In his message, Amarkhil encouraged tribal elders, religious scholars, and parents to take an active role and provide their full support to polio workers to carry out the campaign effectively.
Meanwhile, health officials reported a positive case of polio in the western Badghis province last week, Xinhua news agency reported.
Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two remaining polio-endemic countries in the world. In Afghanistan, despite continuous concerted efforts by the polio programme to achieve polio-free status, the battle to finish the last mile has become a pivoting challenge, resulting in an increase in the number of polio cases during the last three years. Unfortunately, poliovirus is currently spreading to the provinces that have remained polio-free for a long time.
According to WHO, polio is a highly infectious viral disease that largely affects children under 5 years of age. The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (e.g. contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.
In 1988, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio, marking the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, spearheaded by national governments, WHO, Rotary International, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, and later joined by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.
Wild poliovirus cases have decreased by over 99 per cent since 1988, from an estimated 350, 000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries to 6 reported cases in 2021.