Polio Vaccinations Offered to 6.5 Million Pakistani and Afghan Children

The country of Pakistan has launched a week-long polio vaccination drive aimed at eradicating this disease in children.

This vaccination initiative is targeting 38.6 million Pakistani children under the age of 5, including the children of Afghan refugees.

The 3-day anti-polio campaign was launched in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province on September 24th, during which more than 6.5 million children below 5 years of age are expected to be vaccinated.

This UN-funded vaccination campaign will help Pakistan to continue to control the spread of poliovirus as the number of newly-affected children dropped to only 4 cases so far in 2018.

“While an overall 97% decline in the number of cases from highs of 306 in 2014 to only 8 in 2017 is encouraging, we are striving for a magical number ‘Zero’, stated Dr. Rana Safdar, National Coordinator for Polio eradication.

“Nevertheless, despite the decreased intensity of transmission, poliovirus continues to be challenging by appearing in Karachi, Quetta Block, and Peshawar. Intense transmission across the shared corridors with Afghanistan further leaves no space for us to relax till the job is fully done”, Dr. Safdar stated.   

Pakistan and Afghanistan are neighboring countries and are among a few countries where poliovirus remains epidemic, according to data from the ReliefWeb.   

Previously, on September 2, 2018, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued Level 2 Travel Alerts recommending that travelers to 5 countries be fully vaccinated against polio.

The countries currently under CDC Travel Alerts are as follows:

• Democratic Republic of Congo
• Nigeria
• Papua New Guinea
• Somalia
• Syria

Polio is a crippling and potentially deadly disease that affects the nervous system. It is spread through contact with the feces of an infected person. It is also spread by drinking water or eating food that is contaminated with infected feces, says the CDC.

According to the CDC, polio outbreaks are due to circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV), a marker of poor oral polio vaccine (OPV) coverage.

The oral polio vaccine contains an attenuated vaccine-virus, activating an immune response in the body.

When a child is immunized with OPV, the weakened vaccine-virus replicates in the intestine for a limited period, thereby developing immunity by building up antibodies.

During this time, the vaccine-virus is also excreted. On rare occasions, if a population is seriously under-immunized, an excreted vaccine-virus can continue to circulate for an extended period of time.  

Polio has been eliminated from the USA since 1979.

Since 2000, the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) is the only polio vaccine (4 doses) given to people in the USA, says the CDC.

The IPV vaccination is now a requirement when visiting various countries around the world.

Polio vaccination appointments can be easily scheduled at Vax-Before-Travel.

And vaccine discounts can be found here.   

Vaccines, like any medicine, can have side effects. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of vaccines to the FDA or CDC.