Eighty-five percent of all new cases of polio confirmed last year occurred in India. The newest vaccination campaign is one of several recent efforts to rid the planet of the disease, a viral infection that can cause paralysis when it attacks nerve cells.

The vaccination campaign will employ more than 1.3 million vaccination teams and will target 165 million children, according to the WHO.

In order to vaccinate every young child in India within six days, health workers and volunteers plan to go door-to-door and staff vaccination booths across the country.

The vaccination effort is set to launch on February 9th.

"This campaign in February is exactly the kind of response necessary to protect the children of India, and indeed the world, from this devastating disease and tackle this final stage of eradication head-on," Dr. Daniel Tarantola of WHO said in a statement.

The current campaign is a response to a polio epidemic in India's northern region that caused the country to be one of only two nations worldwide--along with Nigeria--to report a significant increase in new polio cases in 2002.

It is the second vaccination campaign launched in India in 2003 alone. Last month, India joined with WHO, the humanitarian organization Rotary International, UNICEF ( news - web sites) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( news - web sites) (CDC) and vaccinated more than 33 million children in Uttar Pradesh, the northern region that is the site of the epidemic.

Although this previous initiative reached millions of children, people involved argue that the disease cannot be controlled until even more kids receive the vaccine.

Polio vaccination has dramatically cut the rate of infection worldwide, and health experts hope to wipe out the disease globally in the next few years.

Even if the current campaign is successful, in order to eradicate polio worldwide, the world has to stay vigilant to prevent future outbreaks, officials note.

"Beyond this program, a huge effort is needed to ensure routine immunization and quality primary health services," Maria Calivis of UNICEF said in a statement. "Today, most of India is polio-free and none of us wants to see a reversal of the gains made in the past several years."

The virus that causes polio remains a risk to citizens in five other countries besides India and Nigeria: Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan ( news - web sites), Niger and Somalia.