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Anti-polio initiative at stake

Staff Correspondent
Hnicef and World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday urged political parties to keep tomorrow's National Immunisation Day (NID) out of the purview of any political programme in the greater interest of the children of Bangladesh.
According to a Hnicef-WHO joint release, Bangladesh is set to immunise around 22 million children aged 0-59 months on the day.
Health workers and volunteers will administer oral polio vaccines to 22 million children at 1,40,000 sites located in health facilities and health centres, schools, as well as at mobile sites (bus, boat and train stations) across the country. A four-day Child-to-Child Search will also be conducted from December 22-26 by mobile teams to make sure that no child is left out.
The immunisation schedule coincides with an opposition-called
FROM PAGE 1 nationwide blockade that will be in force from Saturday morning through Tuesday evening. While announcing the programme at a news briefing yesterday, BNP leader Nazrul Islam Khan assured the authorities that the NID programmes would be kept out of the purview of the blockade.
Unicef Bangladesh representative Pascal Villeneuve said, "Full access to children must be protected and preserved so that the heroes of the polio campaigns - the volunteers, the vaccinators and the social mobilisers - can continue to make history by keeping the scourge of polio away from our children."
Thushara Fernando, WHO representative to Bangladesh, said, "Together with Unicef, I urge all political parties to ensure that work of thousands of health workers and community volunteers would not be hindered, district and upazila health managers could send vaccine and logistics to immunisation centres on time and children from all communities would be brought to the immunisation centres to get polio drops. The support of all stakeholders is even more important now to ensure children of future generations will live in a polio free environment."
Before 1986, an estimated 11,500 children in Bangladesh developed polio every year, said the Unicef-WHO release.
Following the launch of the Global Polio Eradication programme in 1988, intensified polio vaccination activities, notably through the organisation of NIDs, led to the gradual decline of polio cases.
Bangladesh has successfully maintained polio free status since 2006, after the last case of importation related poliomyelitis. This dramatic achievement is a result of sustained bipartisan political commitment to child immunisation in general and to polio eradication in particular, and strong partnership between government, civil society and development partners.