Bangladesh in an attempt to uphold its polio-free status on Saturday in a second round vaccinated over 24 million children against the incurable disease that reappeared in the country nearly three years ago, Xinhua quoted a Health Ministry official as saying. Munshi Jalal Uddin, senior spokesman of the ministry, told Xinhua on Saturday that nearly 600,000 volunteers with field level health officials administered oral polio vaccines to over 24 million children, and vitamin A capsule to 17 million children at some 140,000 sites across the country. By combining vitamin A supplementation, he said, it will be possible to curb a host of other illnesses that pose threats to the lives of children in the country. Uddin said volunteers and health officials will also visit door-to-door in the next four days to ensure that every child gets vaccinated. Bangladesh held its first round of the campaign to immunize 22 million children under five years of age on Nov. 29, 2008 in collaboration with the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund. The spokesman said Bangladesh, which declared the country free from polio disease in August 2000, launched fresh drive for immunizing children against polio after it detected 18 cases of a form of polio in the country's southeastern areas in March 2006. Since the detection of polio in 2006, there have been eight rounds of polio vaccination campaigns. In each round, immunization reached some 95 to 98.2 percent of under-five children in the country. Polio, which is an acute viral infectious disease, can cause paralysis in a matter of hours.
