The Kabul times, Afghanistan Trustable News Agency.
HealthNational

Polio vaccination campaign launched across Afghanistan

In this photo taken on March 20, 2019, an Afghan health worker administers a polio vaccine to a child as people look on in Kandahar province's Arghandab district. - Polio immunisation is compulsory in Afghanistan, but distrust of vaccines is rife, and the programmes are difficult to enforce particularly in rural regions. Militants and religious leaders tell locals that vaccines are a Western conspiracy aiming to sterilise Muslim children, or that such programmes are an elaborate cover for Western or Afghan government spies. (Photo by JAVED TANVEER / AFP) / To go with 'AFGHANISTAN-CONFLICT-VACCINES-POLIO-TALIBAN', FEATURE by Rashid Durrani with Usman Sharifi (Photo credit should read JAVED TANVEER/AFP via Getty Images)

Nearly 10 million Afghan children under the age of five are expected to receive polio drops during the fifth round of the polio vaccination campaign that has started this week in the country.
Concerns have increased following identification a positive polio case in Paktika in recent months. As usual, vaccinators are to go home to home to implement the fifth round of the vaccination campaign.
Waheed Rahmani, head of the vaccination campaign in the western zone, said that 1.1 million children under the age of five are expected to receive the polio drops, including 720,000 in Herat province.
According to health officials, all Afghan children under the age of five are expected to receive the polio drops across the country as the weather is good during this round of the campaign.
Badghis provincial director of public health Mohammad Asif Qanit says it is determined that nearly 184,480 children under the age of five will receive the polio drops in the province.
Meanwhile, Nimroz provincial director of the vaccination campaign Matiullah Munib says the campaign will target 110,000 children under the age of five in the province, but saying that obstacles being created by some families who do not want their children to be vaccinated have stopped local vaccinators to fully implement the drive in some parts of the province.
A local vaccinator Samina Sekandari by pointing to the vaccination campaign in the province said the drive was going with close cooperation of community elders and medics and the elders cooperation was necessary as there were houses that did not let their children vaccinated.
A positive polio case has been identified and registered in Paktika during the current year, while four positive cases of polio had been registered last year in the country.
Poliovirus outbreak is still concerning in some parts of the country. The virus has not treatment and the only way to save the children from the polio disease is the vaccine.
Sima Rahim, an Afghan citizen who is paralyzed due to poliovirus, says I would not be paralyzed if I had been vaccinated. She said she vaccinated all her children. With praising the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), she is asking all families to be cooperative with health personnel and help their children receive polio drops.
Currently, Afghanistan and Pakistan remain the only two polio-endemic countries in the world. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), WHO, UNICEF and health partners are calling for a combined effort to ensure safe access to vaccinate all children in the country particularly remote areas.
Every Afghan has a role to play in ending polio in Afghanistan.
Saida Ahmadi

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The Kabul times, Afghanistan Trustable News Agency.