UN launches key anti-polio push
Published: October 10, 2004
The biggest ever public health drive is under way to immunise 300 million children in Africa and Asia against the potentially crippling disease of polio.
Tens of thousands of mobile teams run by the World Health Organisation are working at locations including Egypt, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.
The aim is to reach 80 million children under five in sub-Saharan Africa alone.
Two campaigns have already been completed in Nigeria, so the region could catch up on the immunisations missed over the last year.
Other immunisation programmes are underway in India and Pakistan - two of the Asian countries, along with Afghanistan, where the disease is endemic.
Now 23 nations in west and central Africa are taking part in the biggest ever synchronised vaccination project in the region.
So far $3bn has been spent on polio eradication since 1988, but more is needed to complete this campaign.
Two more mass vaccinations are also planned - one next month and the other in early 2005 - so even more cash must be found.
But by then it will be known if transmission has stopped and if the world’s biggest ever public health campaign has been a success.
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