Afghanistan has launched its annual polio inoculation campaign aimed at reaching 9 million children, the health ministry said on Monday, the second year in a row the vaccination drive has taken place under Taliban rule.
Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan are the last countries with endemic polio, an incurable and highly infectious disease that can cause crippling paralysis in young children.
Polio has been virtually eliminated globally through a decades-long inoculation drive. But insecurity, inaccessible terrain, mass displacement and suspicion of outside interference have hampered mass vaccination in Afghanistan and some areas of Pakistan.
