BRAZZAVILLE, July 4 (AFP) - The Republic of Congo is to vaccinate some 100,000 children in the strife-torn Pool region, southwest of the capital, against measles and polio, the health ministry said Friday.

Children under five in the region will be vaccinated against polio and those between the ages of nine and 14 against measles.

The vaccination campaign has had to be delayed several times because the Ninja militia group -- a throwback to the private armies that backed various political leaders during Congo's series of civil wars in the 1990s -- last year resumed its fight against the government.

In March, however, the Ninjas accepted a peace proposal put forward by the regime of President Denis Sassou Nguesso, paving the way for the vaccination campaign to finally get under way.

Nearly a year of unrest in Pool resulted in a downturn in health and sanitary conditions in the region, said the health ministry in the smaller of the two Congos, which lies to the west of the vast Democratic Republic of Congo.

The number of children protected by vaccinations against measles and polio dropped to just 18 percent during the unrest. The new campaign aims to bring that back up to 50 percent, the health ministry said.

Polio is known to spread more readily in poor sanitary conditions, and has been eliminated in most of the world. Only seven countries continue to report cases.

Measles is an airborne viral disease associated with high fever, rashes and vomiting that kills thousands of children in tropical countries every year.

According to the Measles Initiative -- a joint effort to fight measles in Africa by the American Red Cross, United Nations Foundation, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), World Health Organization (WHO), and UNICEF -- measles is the leading cause of vaccine-preventable death among children in Africa, where it kills around 500,000 children a year.

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