KABUL: World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Subjects kicked the Polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan on Monday, the first national campaign to fight this disease in three years.
Increasing Shah Momim, the coordinator of the National Emergency Operation for the Polio Program at the Afghan Health Ministry, told Reuters that the campaign had begun in various parts of the country on Monday, but added that there were several obstacles around the lack of trained staff.
The campaign, which is intended to reach more than 3 million children, has received the support of Taliban, which will allow the team to reach children in parts of the country that were previously inaccessible, WHO said.
“The urgency where the Taliban leadership wants the polio campaign to continue showing a shared commitment to maintain the health system and restart important immunization to prevent further outbreaks of preventable diseases,” Ahmed Al Mandhari, which is regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, in a statement.
However, Momim said that more training was needed for teams in remote areas, so the program would initially begin in places like Kabul.
Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan are the last countries in the world with endemic polio, unhurst and very contagious diseases transmitted through waste which can cause paralyzed paralysis in small children.
Polio has almost been globally removed through inoculation drives for decades.
But insecurity, inaccessible terrain, mass displacement and suspicion of outside interference has hampered mass vaccination in Afghanistan and several regions in Pakistan.
Some polio workers have been killed by gunmen in Eastern Afghanistan this year, although it is not clear who was behind the attack.
According to whom the figure compiled before the collapse of the government supported by the West in August, there was one reported case from one wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) in Afghanistan in 2021, compared with 56 in 2020.
Until this disease was completely removed, it was completely removed, It remains a threat to human health in all countries, especially those who have a vulnerable health system because the risk of importing diseases, according to health experts.