WHO, UNICEF launch new polio vaccination campaign in Afghanistan

By a staff reporter: The World Health Organization and the United Nations children’s agency have launched a four-day effort to vaccinate millions of children in Afghanistan against polio, the first campaign in three years. The programme, announced by the Ministry of Public Health and backed by the Taliban, aims to address the 3.3 million children who have gone unvaccinated since 2018, the last time health workers were able to access limited areas of the country. Increased fighting between the forces of the former Western-backed government and the Taliban made inoculation increasingly difficult over the last three years. Afghanistan remains one of only two countries where the disease is still endemic. The other is Pakistan.With the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate controlling nearly all of the country, including the capital, Kabul, there are renewed hopes that the nation’s children can receive shots without fear for the safety of their families, health workers and volunteers involved in the campaigns.