- Sudan grapples with the third-highest rate of polio cases in the world after Nigeria and Niger. While polio vaccination campaigns are going ahead in other countries with the aim of eradicating polio totally from the world, fighting in Darfur is threatening the process. The UN now urges a halt to fighting.
The crippling and deadly disease polio only has a few remaining strongholds on earth after earlier posing a threat to every man, woman and child all over the world. An ambitious plan to eradicate the disease almost failed on traditionalist resistance in Northern Nigeria last year, resulting in a new spread of the virus throughout West Africa.
Now, vaccination is resumed in Northern Nigeria and the last big hinder in the scheme to eradicate the polio virus is found in Sudan, where the Darfuri war is preventing health workers from acting. The UN next week plans a three-day campaign to vaccinate nearly six million children against the disease in Sudan.
However, for the campaign to take place safely a halt to fighting in Darfur is necessary. Jan Pronk, the UN's representative for Sudan, yesterday told a press conference in Khartoum that he will approach the Sudanese government and the Darfuri rebel groups to ask that they observe "three days of tranquillity" during the immunisation scheme, which is slated to begin on Monday.
Mr Pronk said the special call for a break in hostilities is necessary because both sides have only been "paying lip-service" to a ceasefire they previously signed to stop the clashes in a conflict that has raged for almost two years, cost tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 1.85 million people.
- And that means no action whatsoever, he said. "That means that all forces should stay in the camps, in the barracks, not outside, not hampering any humanitarian action to reach the people in order to stop polio, to stop a devastating attack on the people of Sudan."
With the help of some 40,000 volunteers, the World Health Organisation (WHO), the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), non-governmental organisations and the Sudanese Health Ministry plan to vaccinate 5.9 million children – or every child under the age of five – across Africa's largest country. Two further doses of the polio vaccine will then be administered at six-week intervals in February and April.
The series of national immunisation days have been introduced because WHO figures show that Sudan had 105 identified cases of polio last year, the third-highest in the world after Nigeria and India. Cases were reported in 17 of Sudan's 26 states, and 40 were discovered in Khartoum alone.
Mr Pronk said the problem was particularly urgent because so many Sudanese have moved around their country in recent years, making it difficult for health workers to determine exactly who has and who has not been vaccinated. The country's current winter means the polio virus is also less active now than it will be during the hotter months.
WHO's representative in Sudan, Salah El-Haithami, said at the same press conference that the recent reporting in Saudi Arabia of a confirmed polio infection in a Sudanese child living there showed how rapidly the virus can spread.
Sudan's recent outbreak began in May last year when the nation's first cases were reported in more than three years. The outbreak was traced to Northern Nigeria, where vaccinations were suspended in mid-2003. Polio infections have now been reported in at least 13 countries in the region.
Meanwhile, the UN Advance Mission in Sudan (UNAMIS) reported fresh indications of fighting yesterday in Darfur between Sudanese government forces and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA), one of the rebel groups. Government helicopter gunships are reported to have fired rockets at Sayah, a stronghold of the SLA in North Darfur state.
The number of casualties of these clashes is unclear. Armed bandits are also reported to have attacked commercial buses and trucks across all three of Darfur's state and looted passengers of cattle and personal belongings.
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afrol News - It is already a crime being homosexual in Ethiopia, but parliament is now making sure the anti-gay laws will be applied in practical life. No pardoning of gays will be allowed in future, but activist fear this only is a signal of further repression being prepared.
afrol News / Africa Renewal - Ethiopia's ambitious plan to build a US$ 4.2 billion dam in the Benishangul-Gumuz region, 40 km from its border with Sudan, is expected to provide 6,000 megawatts of electricity, enough for its population plus some excess it can sell to neighbouring countries.
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