Sudanese factions urged to assist vaccination campaign in Darfur

KHARTOUM, Sudan, Feb 12, 2005 (PANA) — A United Nations official has urged warring Sudanese factions to maintain the ongoing truce to assist the current polio vaccination campaign in the country’s war ravaged western Darfur region.

A Sudanese Red Crescent employee vaccinates a boy against polio. (AFP).

“I am pleased that all Sudanese parties, including in Darfur, have responded favourably to the appeal I made to observe days of tranquillity during the campaign,” said Jan Pronk, the UN envoy to Sudan in a statement published by newspapers here Saturday.

“I am satisfied that they all kept their promises and I would
like to thank them for their cooperation and call upon them to respect fully the cease-fire agreements in order to allow for completion of the campaign,” the statement quoted Pronk as saying.

Pronk added that the inoculations, being conducted as part of
Africa-wide efforts against polio, had been “exceptionally
successful” and reached more than 5 million children under five out of some 5.9 million targeted in Sudan.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) carried out the vaccination campaign from 10-12 January.
But the vaccinations have been extended until Monday in North
Darfur State.

Children in rebel-held areas of southern Sudan will be inoculated during a four-day campaign until Thursday, the UN agencies added.

The campaign sponsors said that further campaigns are planned for February and April.

On 9 January, the Khartoum government and southern rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army/Movement (SPLA/M) signed a comprehensive peace agreement in Nairobi, Kenya.

The accord paved the way for an end to 21 years of conflict
between the country’s north and south. However, uprisings by
ethnic minority rebels continue in the western region of Darfur and in the east, along the border with Eritrea.

Sudan was one of eight African countries that agreed to carry out mass immunisations against polio following a resurgence of the disease despite UN efforts to eradicate it by the year 2000.

According to WHO figures, polio cases in Sudan leapt from zero to 112 between January and September 2004.

About 85 percent (1,037) of the 1,185 cases recorded world-wide last year occurred in several African countries located between Nigeria and Sudan. There were 784 polio cases in the world in 2003.

Cote d’Ivoire, Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Niger and Nigeria are the other countries targeted in the current immunisation campaign.