KATHMANDU: Nepal launched a drive to eradicate polio by supplementing oral vaccines with an injection that experts say will boost children’s immunity against the disease.
The impoverished Himalayan nation has experienced intermittent success with its oral vaccine-focused campaign, as new cases have turned up every few years, most recently in 2010, when the outbreak was blamed on cross-border transmissions from neighbouring India.
Since the oral vaccine contains a weakened form of the live polio virus that can cause infections, experts have called for it to be supplemented and eventually replaced with the injection, which is already used in dozens of developed countries.
The new rollout will target underdeveloped and developing countries, where the oral vaccine has long been the exclusive choice, being cheaper, easier and quicker to administer. Nepal is the first nation in South Asia to administer the jab.
“The last transmission of polio from one person to another in Nepal was almost five years ago,” Nepalese Health Minister Khaga Raj Adhikari said at the launch.
“Today, we start to make sure that not one of our children will ever again have her future stolen or his dreams destroyed by this disease.”
The virus spreads through faecal matter, attacks the central nervous system and can leave its young victims crippled, paralysed or dead.
The World Health Organization has recommended that all children receive at least one dose of the jab in countries that solely use oral vaccine, in order to increase immunity. AFP
