AFGHNISTAN: Afghan goverment and Taliban strike a rare deal allowing polio vaccines in southern rebel-held area

The Afghan government and the Taliban strike a rare deal to allow polio vaccines in the southern rebel-held territories. Afghan and UNICEF health officials have brokered a deal with Taliban leaders to allow the immunisation of children in rebel-held areas in a rare sign of cooperation between the warring sides. The announcement of the deal was made on Friday (September 22) as part of a programme by UNICEF to vaccinate more than a million Afghan children against polio after a recent outbreak of the debilitating viral infection that has been eliminated from all but four countries in the world. "It has been proven all over the world that anti-polio vaccinations are very useful for children. This vaccine can eradicate the polio disease and prevent other diseases. This is why we welcome this process and we are very happy that our children will benefit this from this," said Gull Haider, a resident of Kandahar, whose children were among the first to receive the vaccine. The Taliban insurgency against the Afghan government and its mainly Western allies has hampered the construction of hospitals and clinics after 30 years of war and prevented health workers reaching many of the sick and injured. But even as fighting raged in the most violent southern province of Helmand, government health officials in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah decided to try to help children on both sides of the frontlines and extend their polio vaccination programme to the rebel-held town of Musa Qala. "The September campaign which is also following within the celebration of international day of peace, 1.3 million of children of Afghanistan will have access to immunisation against polio. Afghanistan is one of four countries in the world where we have not been able to interrupt the circulation of the virus of polio," explained Catherine Mbengue, head of UNICEF in Afghanistan, who is leading the campaign in the southern region. "The good news for this September round is that through mobilisation of the elders, the mullahs, the community, access negotiators have been able to touch a lot of people and the result is that many districts that were not open for vaccination are now open," she added. The deal was struck with UNICEF had the idea of contacting the only medical professional they knew on the Taliban side -- Mullah Ahmad, who used to run a 400-bed emergency hospital under the Taliban. He persuaded the Taliban governor of Musa Qala to welcome the vaccination campaign. Helmand, a long fertile river valley etching its way through parched barren desert, has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in Afghanistan since the Taliban rebounded from their 2001 defeat and resumed large-scale attacks two years ago. The UNICEF vaccination programme was aimed to coincide with the United Nations peace day, but came as mainly British troops launched a major offensive between Musa Qala and Lashkar Gah. Musa Qala was the scene of intense fighting last year between British forces holed up in the town and besieging Taliban fighters until British troops pulled out in a deal under which tribal elders took control and agreed to keep the Taliban out. But in February the rebels moved in and have set up a shadow fiefdom with their own administrators, courts and officials. United Nations officials and international health workers hope the deal with the Taliban might be a first step to peace.

ITN Source | September 23, 2007

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