TIWN
Kabul, Oct 18 (TIWN) A country-wide polio vaccination drive will begin in Afghanistan on November 8 for the first time since the Taliban took over the country in August, the Unicef announced on Monday.
However, as the Taliban made inroads again, door-to-door visits by polio workers had been banned in Afghanistan, for three years now. The World Health Organization (WHO) and Unicef welcome the decision by the Taliban, who support the resumption of house-to-house drive across the country, the UN agency said in a statement on Monday. The campaign will be the first in over three years to reach all children in Afghanistan, including more than 3.3 million kids in parts of the country who have "previously remained inaccessible to vaccination campaigns", Xinhua news agency quoted the statement as saying. "A second nationwide polio vaccination campaign has also been agreed and will be synchronised with Pakistan's own polio campaign planned in December," according to the statement. "This is an extremely important step in the right direction," said Dapeng Luo, WHO Representative in Afghanistan.
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