The Afghan Public Health Ministry launched a nationwide campaign on Sunday to give polio vaccination dose to 9.9 million children under the age of five, the ministry said in a statement.
The five-day drive was launched as 56 polio cases were detected in Afghanistan in 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing insurgency and conflicts have been hindering the efforts to stamp out the infectious disease in the mountainous country as millions of children from areas inaccessible to vaccination teams might miss the ongoing vaccination drive.
Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan are the only two countries in the world that polio cases are reported every year, according to the statement.
However, Afghanistan’s coronavirus tally crossed 54000 with registration of 81 new positive cases in the past 24 hours, the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) said on Sunday.
The nationwide tally reached 54,062 after 14 new cases were detected in Nangarhar, 13 in Herat, 11 in Laghman, 10 in Kunduz, nine in Kunar, seven in Takhar, six in Baghlan, five in Kabul, two in Khost and one each in Kandahar, Balkh, Badakhshan and Kapisa provinces.
MoPH in a statement said 1584 people underwent Covid-19 tests since yesterday and the virus was detected in 81 people.
The period saw more than 400 patients recovering from the disease, taking the total recoveries to 45,868, while four people died of the infection, pushing the death toll to 2,343, the statement said.
