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Vaccinators given safe passage in Afghan south

Afghan elders have given safe passage to thousands of volunteer vaccinators immunizing children against polio in Afghanistan's violent south, a region health workers haven't worked in for months, UNICEF said.

The vaccinators are working in violent areas of Kandahar and Helmand provinces through the help of Kandahar's governor and local elders, who worked to ensure the health workers could travel safely, said Catherine Mbengue, UNICEF representative in Afghanistan.

"So far we have not had any reports of any incidents contrary to what has happened in each [previous] campaign," said Mbengue, who went door-to-door with vaccinators in Kandahar.

Health workers have been abducted in the past, but Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi has said the militants would allow the workers access in southern Afghanistan for the current vaccination campaign.

HAPPY DEVELOPMENT

The vaccinators had not been able to work in parts of Helmand Province -- the region that has seen the heaviest fighting between the Taliban and international forces -- for a year and a half, Mbengue said.

"This is an incredible, happy development," she said on Saturday.

About 10,000 vaccinators began the campaign on Wednesday, aiming to vaccinate 1.3 million children in 10 provinces. The vaccinators wrapped up three days of work in the south and east on Friday, and continue in western Farah Province for three more days beginning today.

On International Peace Day, which was held on Friday, "we were able to see that vaccination was taking place all over the country," Mbengue said.

POLIO

Afghanistan is one of four countries -- along with Pakistan, India and Nigeria -- that suffers endemic polio.

Mbengue said there have been nine polio cases in Afghanistan this year, all of them in the south and east. Last year there were 29 cases, 21 of them in the south.

She said she hopes that because UNICEF has been able to reach previously inaccessible districts, the number of cases will be lower than last year.

The WHO registered 1,999 polio cases around the world last year, up from 1,749 in 2005. The vast majority of cases were in the endemic countries.

Polio mainly affects children under age 5. It is spread when unvaccinated people come into contact with the feces of those with the virus, often through water. It usually attacks the nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and sometimes death.
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