Polio vaccination launched across Sudan targeting 6 million children

CAIRO, Egypt, Jan 10, 2005 (AP) — Fighters laid down their arms Monday across Darfur as health workers in Sudan’s war-torn west and across the rest of Africa’s largest country launched a program to vaccinate 6 million children aged under 5 years against polio.

The three-day nationwide immunization program is being coordinated by the Sudanese Health Ministry, World Health Organization and the United Nations children fund, UNICEF, and follows the re-emergence of the disease last year after it was eradicated in April 2001.

Joanna van Gerpen, UNICEF’s representative in Sudan, said 112 people have so far been detected with the virus in 17 of the country’s 26 states, with most cases being reported in the capital, Khartoum, followed by Red Sea state and the three Darfur states.

“While the number does not seem very large, the concern is that the virus has re-emerged,” van Gerpen said in a telephone interview after launching the national program in the Red Sea capital of Port Sudan.

Another 1.9 million children living in southern Sudanese areas that had been under control of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement, which signed a landmark peace treaty with the government Sunday to end a 21-year civil war, will be vaccinated in a program beginning Jan. 17.

Four more national polio programs will be held throughout Sudan during the year and separate efforts are underway to strengthen national vaccination programs to undertake routine vaccinations, which currently reach 70 percent of Sudan’s children.

The polio strain found in Sudan has been traced back to Nigeria, where there were no vaccination programs against the virus last year, van Gerpen said. Many Nigerians cross borders of nearby African states, including Sudan, freely, particularly Muslims bound for Port Sudan en route to Saudi Arabia on pilgrimage to the holy Islamic cities of Mecca and Medina.

Van Gerpen said other factors contributed to the virus outbreak in Sudan, including the conflict in Darfur that began in February 2003 after rebels rose up against government forces seeking greater autonomy, rights and share of wealth.

Since March, about 70,000 people have died through disease, hunger and attacks in Darfur, while more than 2 million have been displaced by the conflict. The movement of large numbers of people and regional insecurity has strained efforts to immunize children against polio.

The Sudan Liberation Army, one of two main Darfur rebel groups, opened up areas it controlled in North Darfur state to health teams, including workers from UNICEF.

“There are about 1.3 million children we want to get to in Darfur, but only 1.1 million are currently accessible because of security reasons and being too remote to reach,” UNICEF communications officer Paula Claycomb said.