The Taliban interim government has backed a house-to-house polio vaccination drive next month across the country.
In a statement, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children’s Fund said, “WHO and UNICEF welcome the decision by the Taliban leadership supporting the resumption of house-to-house polio vaccination across Afghanistan.”
The UN agencies noted that Afghanistan had recorded only one case of wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) since the start of the year, compared with 56 in 2020. The agencies said that the timely vaccination drive will provide “an extraordinary opportunity to eradicate polio”.
The agencies said, “Restarting polio vaccination now is crucial for preventing any significant resurgence of polio within the country and mitigating the risk of cross-border and international transmission.”
Polio has been virtually eliminated globally through a decades-long inoculation drive. Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan are the last countries in the world with endemic polio. In recent years, insecurity, inaccessible terrain, mass displacement, and suspicion of outside interference have hampered mass vaccination in Afghanistan and some areas of Pakistan.
Polio is an incurable and highly infectious disease transmitted through the sewage that can cause crippling paralysis in young children.
UNICEF, WHO aim to vaccinate all children
The campaign is due to start on November 8. The mass vaccination drive will be the first in more than three years that will aim to vaccinate all children in Afghanistan, including more than 3 million in remote and previously inaccessible areas.
In a statement, UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan Hervé Ludovic De Lys said, “This decision will allow us to make a giant stride in the efforts to eradicate polio. To eliminate polio completely, every child in every household across Afghanistan must be vaccinated, and with our partners, this is what we are setting out to do.”
A second campaign – which will begin in coordination with a campaign in Pakistan in December – has also been planned.
Taliban to allow female frontline workers
The UN agencies said that since the Taliban takeover two months ago, the United Nations had been talking with the group’s leadership to address the health challenges in the country.
The statement said that the Taliban were committed to “providing security and assuring the safety of all health workers across the country, which is an essential prerequisite for the implementation of polio vaccination campaigns”.
It said, “The Taliban leadership has expressed their commitment for the inclusion of female frontline workers.”
That marks a dramatic shift in the Taliban’s take on door-to-door vaccination campaigns as the group suspected the drives were being used to spy on their activities.
