TEHRAN – The health ministry is scheduled to implement the second phase of the polio eradication campaign in the country’s northern half from May 17 to 19.

The first phase was conducted from April 12 to 14. The polio eradication campaign kicked off in winter, targeting around 300,000 more children under five years of age to get vaccinated in two phases in high-risk areas in the country’s northern half in spring, according to the health ministry. 

Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that largely affects children under 5 years of age. The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the fecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (for example, contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.

It can be prevented through immunization. The development of effective vaccines to prevent paralytic polio was one of the major medical breakthroughs of the 20th century. The Polio vaccine, given multiple times, almost always protects a child for life. 

High-risk areas are remote villages, the outskirts of cities, and places where refugees reside. According to statistics, some 314,00 children under the age of five have received vaccinations in the first phase of the campaign, and the same number of children will be vaccinated during the second phase of the supplementary immunization campaign, ISNA quoted Mohsen Zahraei, an official with the health ministry, as saying. 

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (for example, contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.

To prevent the outbreak of the disease in the country’s southern half, in the past Iranian calendar year which ended on March 20, the annual door-to-door polio vaccination campaign was implemented in two phases, with a month interval between them, targeting children under the age of five in high-risk regions in the southern part of the country.

The first phase was conducted from January 4 to 6, and the second phase started on February 15 and concluded on February 17. During the campaign, some 840,000 Iranian and foreign national children under the age of 5 were immunized against polio by medical universities in Sistan-Baluchestan, Kerman, Fars, Hormozgan, Bushehr, Khuzestan, South Khorasan, and Yazd provinces.

Polio vaccination should be given at 2, 4, 6, and 18 months of age, with supplementary vaccination to be received at 6 years of age, ISNA reported. 

The supplementary immunization campaign to eradicate polio in Iran started in 1994. Thanks to the campaign, the country has been polio-free since 2000.

However, in Iran’s two neighboring countries, namely Afghanistan and Pakistan, endemic transmission of wild poliovirus is still prevalent. Due to frequent travel to these countries, as well as intensified migration of Afghans to the country because of political changes in Afghanistan in recent years, Iran is exposed to the resurgence of the disease, Borna quoted Alireza Raeisi, an official with the health ministry, as saying in February. 

Moreover, the fact that in 2024, the number of wild poliovirus positives in Afghanistan and Pakistan increased by four and twelve times, respectively, compared to 2023, indicates that the country is highly at risk, Raeisi noted.

MT/MG