Global drive to eradicate polio moves to Afghanistan and Pakistan

Cross-border polio vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan, two of the four remaining countries which have never stopped polio, plan to vaccinate nearly 50 million children between them in the coming week.

The two countries share a long border with regular travel and are considered a single block of transmission for the poliovirus.

Since the introduction of new tools (including more potent vaccines) and new tactics in both countries in 2006, both appear to have stopped the bulk of their indigenous polio, and are now dealing with the inter-country reservoirs, where access is complicated by security and population mobility, among other factors. Stopping polio in these reservoirs requires careful international coordination and real synchronization of activities at borders, as well as concrete help to improve safety, even temporarily. In both countries, vaccinators aim to reach all children under the age of five. In Afghanistan, this means 7.3 million children and in Pakistan, 42.3 million.

The global drive to eradicate polio, which has reduced the number of polio cases worldwide by over 99%, is predicated on reaching all children under five years of age with oral polio vaccine multiple times. Only two other countries have never stopped polio -- India and Nigeria, both with larger populations, vastly more cases and much more intense transmission of virus than Afghanistan and Pakistan. In 2006, Afghanistan and Pakistan had 31 and 40 cases of polio respectively; India and Nigeria had 674 and 1127 respectively. The independent advisory group to the global eradication effort concluded last year that 2007 presents the best chance for Afghanistan and Pakistan to be the next countries to stop poliovirus.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative was created in 1988 by the World Health Assembly, the policy-setting body composed of member states of WHO. The Initiative is spearheaded by WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF.

http://www.who.int/