Polio vaccination campaign to begin in Afghanistan

Polio has been virtually eliminated globally through a decades-long inoculation drive. But insecurity, inaccessible terrain, mass displacement and suspicion of outside interference have hampered mass vaccination in Afghanistan and some areas of Pakistan.

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The campaign due to start on Nov. 8 will be the first in more than three years aimed at all children in Afghanistan, including more than 3 million in remote and previously inaccessible areas.

“This decision will allow us to make a giant stride in the efforts to eradicate polio,” Hervé Ludovic De Lys, UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan, said in a statement.

“To eliminate polio completely, every child in every household across Afghanistan must be vaccinated, and with our partners, this is what we are setting out to do,” he said.

A second campaign, due to begin in coordination with a campaign in Pakistan in December, has also been agreed.

According to figures compiled before the collapse of the Western-backed government in August, there was one reported case of the one wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in Afghanistan in 2021, compared with 56 in 2020.

However until the disease is eliminated completely, it remains a threat to human health in all countries, especially those with vulnerable health systems because of the risk of importing the disease.