 Child being vaccinated against Polio
Afghanistan is one of four countries " along with India, Pakistan and Nigeria " where the highly infectious disease which can leave patients totally paralyzed is still endemic.
The campaign which began yesterday is the second one launched this year by the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children"s Fund (UNICEF) and the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, building on a series of national immunization days and house-to-house vaccination schemes which ran last year.
A similar polio vaccination campaign last month targeted an estimated 2.8 million children.
Meanwhile, WHO is boosting its stock of medical supplies in the southern province of Kandahar, in anticipation of a deteriorating security situation and possible population displacement, Nilab Mobarez of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) told reporters in Kabul today.
The agency has pre-positioned enough supplies to cover the essential health needs of 80,000 people for three months.
The UN is continuing to monitor the situation in the neighbouring southern province of Helmand in the wake of recently military operations there, and have increased emergency supplies in the area, UNAMA added.
The UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), some 275 families " about 27,700 people " were displaced from Marjah town and Nad Ali district in Helmand from 8 February to 4 March.
UN partner agencies reported that 88 per cent of the displaced families have received assistance, including from UNHCR, WHO and the World Food Programme (WFP).
Source: UN News
Global 
-
-
-
U.S. President Barack Obama's top Russia adviser has said that diplomats from Washington and Moscow will likely meet in the coming weeks to work on a new UN Security Council draft resolution targeting the Syrian government over its bloody crackdown on antigovernment protesters. more
-
More than 500 protesters have gathered in Moscow's Pushkin Square to demand more government funding for science and scientists in Russia. more
-
Anders Hjemdahl of the Stockholm-based Institute for Information on the Crimes of Communism talked to RFE/RL about why Western Europeans seem to know so little about the communist past. more
-
The Paris prosecutor's office has dropped an investigation into a French writer's claim that former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn tried to rape her. more
-
A prominent member of a Russian anarchist street-art collective who faced jail for overturning a police car has had the charges against him lifted. more
-
The Slovak parliament has approved expanding the powers of the European Union's bailout fund. more
-
A Prague court has ruled that former Belarusian presidential candidate Ales Mikhalevich should not be extradited to Belarus. more
Comments
|
Popular Right Now
Popular Commentary
New Reports
New World News
 Singer Whitney Houston, dead at 48Sundered by drug abuse and a slumping career, the talented and once beautiful Whitney Houston has passed away. - Pakistan: Short stories in Punjabi, to promote Christian values and common good
Fr. Mukhtar Alam has published a volume of stories of his mother. Stories that give "light" to those who are in the "dark" and teach the common good. At presentation, near the cathedral of Faisalabad, intellectuals, writers and leaders of the Church of Pakistan Muslim.
- Hong Kong: Hong Kong, jobs emergency: workers shortage by 2018
One government study confirms need for 14 thousand workers by 2018 to maintain economic growth at current levels. Behind this there are restrictive policies on birth control imposed by Beijing and the decision not to give citizenship to those born in the Territory.
- Myanmar: Monk Gambira, leader of the Saffron Revolution, free again
The authorities had yesterday detained him "for questioning". First released only a month ago, Gambira has spent the past three years in prison for leading protests by monks against the Burmese government.
- India: Karnataka: Jesuits and schools targeted by Hindu nationalists
Three attacks since 2011 at St. Joseph's PU College, Anekal. The religious are accused of not having displayed the national flag on Republic Day, but the president has always denied this. Silence of police and authorities. Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC): ...
|
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Google+