CONGO: Polio vaccination campaign launched after one month delay

NAIROBI, 25 Jul 2002 (IRIN) - After a one-month postponement due to a series of political elections, the Republic of Congo (ROC) launched on Thursday this year's nationwide campaign to vaccinate 682,640 children aged five years and under against polio, with assurances of access to all districts of the troubled Pool region, according to the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

The campaign - a collaborative effort on the part of the ROC Ministry of Health, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control, the UNICEF, the UN World Health Organisation, and national Red Cross volunteers - has appealed to all parties to the conflict to allow full access for teams of vaccinators.

Otherwise, UNICEF Country Director Raymond Janssens warned, there "could be an epidemic in Pool that would spread like wildfire". "A successful campaign this year would be a major achievement," he told IRIN.

The launch coincides with the start of the second round of synchronised National Immunisation Days taking place in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Gabon, and Sao Tome e Principe, all of which were able to begin their campaigns as scheduled in mid-June.

Despite the delayed start, ROC will have its three full rounds of immunisation days, with a second round scheduled from 29 August to 2 September, and a third from 3 to 7 October.

The vaccine must be administered several times for a child to be fully protected from polio.

For the first time last year, the five countries synchronised their polio immunisation days in an effort to reach some 16 million children. The success of these coordinated rounds is key to halting transmission in the central African region, one of the world's last reservoirs of wild polio virus.

One country cannot be certified polio-free until all neighbouring countries have been certified.

UNICEF noted that whereas recent hostilities in the capital, Brazzaville, and the surrounding Pool region, had caused the displacement of populations, "specific measures have been taken in order to account for all displaced persons". UNICEF added that the one-month postponement of the anti-polio campaign "would in no way affect the success of the nationwide effort".

Concern had earlier been voiced that the integrity of the synchronised immunisation days could be compromised due to the proximity of and frequency of transit between Brazzaville and the DRC capital, Kinshasa, just across the River Congo.

UNICEF and its partners have made polio vaccination a centrepiece of their development platform, following a global initiative launched in 1988 to eradicate the disease by the end of the year 2000. Not quite having achieved that, 2005 was set as the new target for certification of the world as polio-free.

[For more details on the global campaign]

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