Bangladesh works to vaccinate 500K children against polio in annual immunization drive

"Mobile health teams in Bangladesh are conducting 'child-to-child' searches to reach the remaining half million children not vaccinated during a nationwide polio immunization campaign launched on 7 January," IRIN reports. With a goal of vaccinating 22 million children, health workers are heading into hard-to-reach and high-risk areas to vaccinate the remaining 560,791 children, the news service writes. "Since a polio outbreak in 2006 of an imported viral strain, the government has not reported any infections, pledging annual polio vaccinations until [neighboring] India is declared polio-free," IRIN notes, adding the next round of polio vaccinations in Bangladesh is scheduled for February 11 (1/11).