INTERVIEW-Afghanistan to be polio-free within two years-WHO
(For more on Afghanistan, click on [ID:nAFPAK])
By Yara Bayoumy
KABUL, Nov 17 (Reuters) - The World Health Organisation aims to get rid of polio in Afghanistan within two years, the agency's head of mission said on Tuesday, bringing the world one step closer to eradicating the paralysing virus globally.
If vaccination teams had unfettered access to carry out six immunisation rounds, polio could even be eliminated within six months in Afghanistan, one of the last four places where the virus is endemic, Peter Graaff said.
"The way we're going about it now, I would say if we manage to continue with the current overall trend, then we should be able to make Afghanistan polio-free within two years," Graaff told Reuters in an interview.
Although circulation of the disease could be interrupted within Afghanistan in that time, it could still take up to three years before it is formally declared polio-free because cases could still be imported from neighbouring Pakistan, where it remains widespread.
A national vaccination drive has begun in Afghanistan against polio, which spreads in areas with poor sanitation. The disease attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs, within hours of infection.
Children under the age of three are most vulnerable to polio, which until the 1950s crippled thousands of people every year in rich nations.
Mass vaccination campaigns have been running in Afghanistan for the past eight years and have succeeded in restricting the circulation of the virus to the southern belt of the country from the Pakistan border in the east to Farah province in the west.
This year there have been 26 recorded cases of polio in Afghanistan, 23 of which were in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, Graaff said.
"Eighty-four percent of Afghans live in parts of Afghanistan that are polio-free and they are not being re-infected despite the vast movement we have in this country," he said.
TALIBAN COOPERATION
The WHO has been working for more than 30 years to stop the transmission of polio, which remains endemic in Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In Afghanistan, there are six national campaigns every year, with a 50,000-strong team reaching 7.7 million children. Another three sub-national campaigns take place, reaching 1.2 million children, in the more vulnerable southern region.
The immunisation drives miss between 100,000-200,000 children in the south during each campaign because of fighting. The main Taliban strongholds are in the south and, in some cases, insurgent leaders restrict entry of the teams.
However, Graaff said the Afghan Taliban were more responsive than their Pakistani counterparts, making the vaccination drives more successful.
"In some areas (of Pakistan) it is being equated as ... this is part of what the foreigners are doing, therefore by default it has to be bad, and it may be something against Islam, and may make women sterile. We don't have that here," he said.
"We are doing quite well even in areas that are either disputed or under control of insurgents."
Graaff said the immunisation campaigns would not be affected by a United Nations decision to evacuate hundreds of international staff from Afghanistan for several weeks after five foreign U.N. staff were killed by militants in October.
"We are not slimming down, we are not retrenching," Graaff said. "If we don't get rid of polio in Afghanistan, we haven't gotten rid of polio in the world. So the whole world depends on what we're doing here, so it becomes a little bit about whatever it takes, because it's the endgame."
(Editing by Paul Tait)
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