Afghanistan Times
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KABUL: The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) on Sunday said it has launched a five-day anti-polio immunization drive to vaccinate 9.9 million children in 34 provinces.
The anti-polio campaign launched by the MoPH in cooperation with the WHO and UNICEF, which through 9.9 million under five years age will receive immunization drops, said MoPH in a statement on Sunday.
Despite increasing efforts to fight polio, the disease is considered a challenge in some specific areas due to malnutrition of the children.
On the other hand, the Covid-19 outbreak caused around six months delay in launching of the polio campaign, which also caused weakness in the undernourished body of the children, so these all reasons lead to the increase of positive polio cases, the statement added.
According to the statement, a total of 56 cases of polio were recorded in 2020, where 75 percent of them were reported in those areas where the doorstep vaccination program was not easy.
Over 65,000 health workers considering precautionary measures of Covid-19 will run the campaign, the statement added.
The health ministry called on the parents to make sure to take two drops of vaccine to their children during the program to prevent them from paralyzing.
According to the statement, the polio program is still concerned that possibly around 3.3 million children will be deprived of taking polio vaccination due to prohibition of home-to-home campaigns in some specific areas.
