03/16/2010 (10:12 pm)
AFGHANISTAN: Polio virus eradicated in north, virulent in south
AFGHANISTAN: Polio virus eradicated in north, virulent in south
24 Sep 2008 08:18:02 GMT
Source: IRIN
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KABUL, 24 September 2008 (IRIN) - The Ministry of Public Health has reported a virtual eradication of the polio virus in the relatively calm northern provinces and central highlands.
"In the past three years no polio case has been reported in 10 northern and central provinces," Abdullah Fahim, spokesman for the Public Health Ministry (MoPH), told IRIN.
The UN World Health Organization (WHO) sent a 14-member team to different parts of the country to do a rapid polio surveillance and assessment on 30 August.
"The team concluded that there was no polio virus in those [northern] areas and that the virus has been localised in the south," said Tahir Mir, a medical officer working for WHO in Kabul.
Poliomyelitis has not been reported in Badakhshan, Takhar, Kunduz, Baghlan, Balgh, Jozjan, Badghis, Sari Pol, Bamiyan and Samangan since 2005.
A certificate of polio virus eradication can be issued when no wild polio virus is found for at least three years, according to WHO's rules.
The crippling virus has not been eradicated in the remaining 24 provinces of the country, but reported cases have dropped significantly in several other provinces, including Kabul.
However, Afghanistan has a long way to go to purge its whole territory of the virus.
At least 16 cases have been reported in the volatile south and southeast this year, according to the ministry. Seven polio cases were reported in the same regions in 2007.
"In the south and southeast, insecurity and attacks on health workers have impeded our efforts to access and immunise every child under-five," said the spokesman.
Public health officials said polio immunisation drives would be implemented countrywide, including in the polio-free north, both to consolidate the progress made and to contain the spread of the virus from the south.
"We will concentrate anti-polio efforts on southern and southeastern provinces where the virus is virulent," Fahim said, adding that the target to wipe out polio by 2011 would depend on security and health workers' access to all under-fives.
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200,000 Afghan children miss on polio vaccination: UN
(AFP)
KABUL - Nearly 200,000 children could not be vaccinated during a three-day polio immunisation drive in southern Afghanistan because of Taliban-linked violence in their areas, the United Nations said Monday.
The UN launched the three-day vaccination campaign in six Afghan provinces on its Peace Day, September 21, with an aim to immunise 1.85 million children under five against the crippling disease.
But ‘regrettably 190,000 children, most of them in districts of (southern) Helmand and Kandahar (provinces), could not be reached because of obstruction or fighting,’ UN spokesman Jamil Danish told reporters.
This was despite pledges from the Taliban, responsible for much of the violence in those areas, to not attack or hinder the thousands of vaccinators, most of them volunteers or health workers.
International and Afghan forces had also agreed to hold fire on Peace Day and afterwards accused the Taliban of carrying out several attacks.
Afghanistan is one of a handful of countries that still has the crippling polio virus, with 18 new cases reported this year, all in the south and east where insurgent violence is the strongest and health workers most at risk.
The UN again called on Afghans to leave health workers out of their disputes for another nation-wide polio vaccination campaign due next month.
29 September 2008
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