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UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 15 November 2006

IRAQ: Immunisation campaign gets underway, despite insecurity

BAGHDAD, 15 Nov 2006 (IRIN) - The Ministry of Health is in the midst of a five-day national polio immunisation campaign to protect 4.8 million Iraqi children after countrywide security problems delayed it for weeks.

“We were obliged to delay for weeks the immunisation campaign since security issues forced our volunteers to wait for a safer period,” Ahmed Obeid, press officer in the Ministry of Health, said. “But we hope this time to reach a 100 percent immunisation in Iraq.”

Launched on Sunday and ending on Thursday, the campaign involves more than 5,400 health workers. They are going house-to-house across Iraq to immunise every child under five against polio.

“The situation is critical and because of insurgency in Iraq security concerns over children have delayed what is a serious matter. In addition, 69 percent of the population has no access to drinking water and 19 percent has no sewage access, making the health of those children more vulnerable to diseases,” Obaid said.

Obaid added that while general security in Iraq has not got any better over the past couple of months, an awareness campaign of the vaccination programme had gained assurances from tribal chiefs that vaccinators would not be targeted.

The campaign will help to maintain Iraq’s polio-free status, a public health triumph for children won through several successful immunisation drives in the past. Iraq’s last polio case was reported in 2000.

According to medical staff in the Ministry of Health, the nearly 250,000 children who were born after 2003 in Iraq have not had polio immunisation.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is providing oral polio vaccines for the campaign as well as transport and communication support to help vaccinators reach children in Iraq’s most remote and insecure areas.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has provided vital assistance to the Iraqi government for planning the campaign, training local health staff and providing incentives for vaccinators.

WHO states that polio is a highly infectious and incurable communicable disease that can cause lifelong paralysis. Most of its victims are children under five years old.

Although polio has been driven out of Iraq, a recent global resurgence of the virus has brought a renewed threat to the region. Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Sudan have all been re-infected since 2004, making this week’s campaign vital to safeguard Iraq’s children.

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This material comes to you via IRIN, a UN humanitarian information unit, but may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations or its agencies. If you re-print, copy, archive or re-post this item, please retain this credit and disclaimer. Quotations or extracts should include attribution to the original sources. All materials copyright © UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2006