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This is Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English
Development Report.
Health workers in West and Central Africa have been carrying out a
campaign to protect 80 million children from polio. The vaccination effort
involves 23 countries. Organizers call it "the single-largest public
health campaign in history."
The workers are going house to house. They want to make sure every
child below the age of five is vaccinated. The first part of the campaign
began Friday and continues through Tuesday.
The polio vaccine is
taken by mouth. The first child to receive the drops of liquid was Zainab
Ibrahim Shekaru. She is the one-year-old daughter of the governor of Kano
state in Nigeria.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo gave the baby the vaccine at a
ceremony in Kano on October second. Other African leaders also attended.
Mister Obasanjo directed all Nigerians to stay at home this past Saturday
morning so children could be immunized.
Polio is caused by a virus. The virus is spread through body fluids and
also water or food handled by an infected person. People who get the
disease often lose the ability to move their arms or legs. Some die from
polio. There is no cure. But polio can be prevented. To work best, the
vaccine is given to children several times during their first few years of
life.
Since 2003, there have been new cases in twelve African countries that
had been free of polio. Polio began to spread in Africa last year after
Kano and other states in northern Nigeria stopped immunization efforts.
Islamic religious leaders had claimed that the vaccine was harmful. But
the leaders have declared the current supplies to be safe.
The next National Immunization Days are set from November 18th to the
22nd. Children will also have the chance to receive vitamin A, which is
important for good health.
The campaign is led by the Global Polio
Eradication Initiative. This program includes the United
Nations Children's Fund and the World Health Organization. Rotary
International and the United States Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention are also involved.
World health officials set a goal to end polio by two thousand five.
The W.H.O. counted 754 new cases in the world this year through the end of
September. Three-fourths were in Nigeria.
This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Karen
Leggett. This is Gwen Outen. | 
