Taliban Renounces War on Anti-Polio Workers

05/13/2013

The Taliban has ended its war on polio vaccination workers and admitted immunisation is the only way to protect children from the disease, its leadership said in a statement issued today.

The announcement comes just weeks after the Afghan government launched a new campaign to immunise more than eight million children between six months and five years old throughout the country. It said it had trained 46,000 volunteers to conduct the campaign which is funded by the American aid agency USAID, the World Health Organisation and Unicef.

Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are the three remaining countries in the world where polio remains a serious threat, but efforts to eradicate the disease have been sabotaged by the Taliban and other Islamic militants who have assassinated immunisation volunteers in all three countries.

The full article continues at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/10053981/Taliban-renounces-war-on-anti-polio-workers.html on The Telegraph’s website.