Ministry of Public Health of Afghanistan officially launched a three day mop up immunization campaign in 46 districts of 8 provinces in Eastern, South-Eastern, Southern and Western Afghanistan. This campaign starts on 13 September 2009 and continues for 3 days. MoPH with the technical and financial support from the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children?s Funds (UNICEF) and donor communities conducts this supplementary immunization to provide immunity against polio to almost 1.2 million under 5 years age children and to stop circulation of wild polio virus inside Afghanistan and importation of virus from neighboring countries. By achieving and sustaining these two targets, Afghanistan will soon obtain the status of a polio free country.
Around 6600 staff of MoPH and community volunteers will drop polio vaccines to the mouth of 1.2 million under 5 year age children in 48 districts of 8 provinces of the country, namely; Kunar, Nangarhar, Kandahar, Khost, Helmand, Urozgan, Farah and Ghor. This is another opportunity to covers all villages and to vaccinate target children against Polio said Dr. S. M. Amin Fatimie, Minister of Public Health of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Children are our future and we have to protect our future from paralysis. Therefore, we request all Afghans, especially elders and district officials, health workers and health partners to provide any kind of help and support to this process so that all target children could get vaccinated in the coming 3 days he added.