The Global Polio Eradication Emergency Action

Emergency Action Plan  The Global Polio Eradication Emergency Action Plan aims to boost vaccination coverage in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, the three remaining polio endemic countries, to levels needed to stop polio transmission. Developed in coordination with country national emergency plans, the global plan builds on India’s success in stopping polio transmission and outlines a range of new strategies and initiatives to better support eradication efforts, including: Intensified focus on worst-performing areas of Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan to increase vaccination coverage by end of 2012 to levels needed to stop transmission; New approaches tailored to each country to tackle persistent challenges and improve polio vaccination campaign performance; Heightened accountability, coordination and oversight to ensure success at every level of government and within every partner agency and organization; Surge of technical assistance and social mobilization capacity.

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Related links:

• About the Emergency Action Plan (pdf)
• Emergency Action Plan 2012-2013 (pdf, US format)  and la version française (pdf, A4 format)
  1. Annex 1:List of Innovations in the India Polio Eradication Program
  2. Annex 2: Nigeria - National Emergency Plan 2012
  3. Annex 3: Pakistan - Augmented National Emergency Plan 2012
  4. Annex 4: Afghanistan - Polio Eradication Emergency Action Plan
  5. Annex 5: Chad: Emergency Action Plan for 2012
  6. Annex 6: Democratic Republic of the Congo - Emergency Action Plan
  7. Annex 7: Angola - National Polio Emergency Plan for 2012
  8. Annex 8: New inter-agency groups to promote cross-agency alignment on priority-setting and support to priority polio countries.
  9. Annex 9: Improved GPEI partner accountability and management - Activities of WHO, UNICEF, CDC, and Rotary International
• Fact sheets 
• Infographic (pdf)
• Financing

Post Polio Litaff, Association A.C _APPLAC Mexico

Anti-polio-drive-to-begin-in-Peshawar-on-January-5

PESHAWAR: A three day anti-polio drive will begin in Peshawar on January 5 and security will be provided to volunteers.

Deputy Commissioner Peshawar, Javed Marwat told Geo News that polio drops would be administered to 800,000 children. 18,000 teams have been formed for the anti-polio drive who will go from door to door administering the drops.

At least 8 volunteers of the anti-polio drive were killed in Karachi and parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa leading to the suspension of the drive by UN agencies in December 2012.

Post Polio Litaff, Association A.C _APPLAC Mexico

"The effect of the killing of polio vaccine workers in Pakistan

Editorial, opinion pieces address effects of health worker murders in Pakistan on polio eradication

Several news outlets published opinion pieces regarding the recent murders of poliovaccination and other aid workers in Pakistan. The following summarizes two opinion pieces and one editorial on the issue.

• Lancet: "The effect of the killing of polio vaccine workers in Pakistan will have repercussions for its neighbor Afghanistan, which, together with Pakistan itself and Nigeria, is one of the remaining polio-endemic countries," and "[o]ther neighboring countries have also been put at risk," a Lancet editorial states. "To eradicate polio, the work that the brave polio health workers died for must be continued in 2013," the Lancet writes, concluding, "Furthermore, it is imperative not only to ensure immunization workers' security, but also to address the determinants behind the shooting of polio health workers – i.e., to win the hearts of the public, to go beyond the 'polio only' agenda, and to enhance polio vaccination's integration into the routine health and immunization program" (1/5).
• Jeffrey Kluger, TIME: "Thanks to aggressive global vaccination programs led by Rotary International, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, and, most recently, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the year just beginning could be [polio's] last," Kluger, senior editor at TIME, writes. He notes the killing of the health care and aid workers, as well as a Taliban-imposed ban on polio vaccinations in certain regions of Pakistan. "Using children as viral suicide bombers this way is a new -- and grotesque -- form of bioterrorism, and the world, for now at least, is not standing idly by," Kluger states, noting the efforts of governments and aid organizations. "The war with the poliovirus and its human defenders has been joined -- and 2013 could be the year in which the climactic battles are fought," he concludes (1/3).
• Afiya Shehrbano Zia, Guardian: Zia, a feminist researcher, activist and author, "highlight[s] the 'context' that enabled such unprecedented violence against female health workers, ostensibly committed by militants other than the [Taliban in Pakistan]," she writes, adding, "I shall argue that it is not just the 'conditions that create groups like the Taliban' that require scrutiny, but that it is equally incumbent upon us to see how the narrative of religious militancy encourages, strengthens, colludes with and affords impunity to all forms of faith-based misogyny in Pakistan." After a long analysis, she concludes that "the attacks by religious militants on women polio workers (and other women activists) must be seen in the context of the views, politics and policies of all Islamists on women's health, sexuality, homosexuality, control over their bodies, mobility and gendered roles. Only then can we be assured of a more accurate analysis of gendered violence in Pakistan" (⅓).

Post Polio Litaff, Association A.C _APPLAC Mexico

Health Organization has begun to use a new vaccine against polio.

New Vaccine Joins Campaign to End Polio

• Order: 
 
• Duration: 4:02
 
• Published: 10 Feb 2010
 
• Updated: 29 Aug 2012

Author: VOALearningEnglish

This is the VOA Special English Development Report, from voaspecialenglish.com The World Health Organization has begun to use a new vaccine against polio. Officials say it will become a major tool in the campaign to end a disease that mainly affects children under age five. The new formulation is known as BOPV, or bivalent oral polio vaccine. It was used for the first time in December in a polio immunization campaign in Afghanistan. Carol Pandak is with the PolioPlus program of the service organization Rotary International. She explains that health workers have been using what are called trivalent vaccines in some places. These are areas like Afghanistan where more than one kind of polio virus exists. There are three types of polio virus. The trivalent vaccine is least effective against type three, more effective against type one and highly effective against type two. As a result, few new cases of type two have been reported since nineteen ninety-nine. This has led to greater use of monovalent vaccines to protect against either type one or type three polio. But Carol Pandak says the monovalent vaccine is not enough in areas with both kinds of polio. Rod Curtis at the World Health Organization in Geneva says the new bivalent vaccine solves this problem. Carol Pandak says tests found the new vaccine to be thirty percent more effective than the trivalent vaccine. More than thirty new cases of polio were reported in Afghanistan last year. About half were type one and the ...

http://wn.com/New_Vaccine_Joins_Campaign_to_End_Polio 

Gov't Issues Polio Alert

• Order: 
 
• Duration: 3:28
 
• Published: 06 Sep 2011
 
• Updated: 05 Jul 2012

Author: kenyacitizentv

The government has declared a public health alert after a three - year - old boy tested positive for a polio - type virus in Rongo district of Nyanza province. Public health and sanitation Beth Mugo said ministry officials have since been dispatched to the area in an effort to contain the outbreak as well as administer polio vaccines to children under the age of five. The ministry will undertake house to house vaccinations in five regions which have been declared highly volatile. Judy Kosgey has that report.

http://wn.com/Gov't_Issues_Polio_Alert