Afghan health ministry launches polio vaccination drive
Dec 13, 2021
Kabul [Afghanistan], December 13 : The Afghan health ministry launched a campaign on Monday to innoculate millions of children in Afghanistan against polio.
The campaign is the last polio vaccination drive in 2021. It will continue for two weeks. This week it will cover 21 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. "The next drive will cover 13 provinces of Kandahar, Helmand, Nimroz, Zabul, Uruzgan, Nangarhar, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman, Ghazni, Paktika, Balkh, and Ghor," the ministry said in a statement.
Technically and financially supported by the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), the campaign will cover 9.9 million Afghan children, Xinhua reported.
Increased fighting between the forces of the former Western-backed government and the Taliban made inoculation increasingly difficult over the last three years.
Afghanistan remains one of only two countries where the disease is still endemic. The other is Pakistan.
With the Taliban's Islamic Emirate controlling nearly all of the country, including the capital, Kabul, there are renewed hopes that the nation's children can receive shots without fear for the safety of their families, health workers and volunteers involved in the campaigns.
