According to the sources of Ministry of Health, a new polio campaign started in the country from Sunday in which more than eight million children below five will be given the anti-polio drops. This is the second campaign of the year in which more than 68000 polio workers will go home to home to make sure that no child below five should be left out. In the last campaign that was undertaken in 8 bordering provinces of the country, more than three million children were given the treatment.

The campaign showed its result and after that, the numbers of polio cases in the country were considerably decreased. This year till now, only eight cases have been recorded in the country and if the targets were achieved, Afghanistan may also become one of the countries free of polio.

At present, our country is included among three countries (including Pakistan and Nigeria) where polio is present. It noteworthy that in all of the three countries, there is present insecurity and violence which is considered the major reason for the failure in controlling this disease.

Last campaign was also launched with reports that the bordering areas were getting affected due to the transition of this virus from across the border in Pakistan because in tribal areas of Pakistan, Taliban had failed all the attempts of carrying out any campaign against polio and large numbers of cases were recorded in the tribal areas of Pakistan. After the Pakistani government launched the military operation against militants, hundreds of families also fled the area and took refuge in Afghanistan and same fears of polio transition were present at that time as well. However, there needs to be vigilant check on the areas bordering Pakistan for any polio case.

In the last campaign, the help of religious scholars and clerics were sought for encouraging the people to get their children vaccinated because due to propagation of Taliban, anti-polio perceptions are present in some tribal and far-flung areas of the country. The strategy was successful when no resistance was recorded by anyone in the campaign.  However, no such help of religious scholars has been sought this time.

The United Nations and the international committee of donors, who have sponsored this campaign, are hopeful that they will be able to set this country free of polio. When the foreigners are so much serious in this regard, it also becomes the responsibility of every single citizen to work to promote and make this campaign successful.