The national campaign to eradicate polio was officially launched Saturday by the minister of Health and Social Welfare, Dr Abubacarr Gaye at a ceremony held at the Jammeh Foundation for Peace Hospital in Bundung. 
 
This year's immunization campaign is divided into two phases. The first round will take place from 6-9 March 2010; while the second round will last from 24-27 April 2010. During the course of the eradication campaign, health workers and volunteers will go from door-to-door in every Gambian household, giving oral polio vaccine to children under the age of five. The Gambia has made significant progress in the fight against polio, which attacks the nervous system, but the virus has still not been stamped out finally.
 
The campaign is a synchronisation between nineteen countries in the sub-region and beyond in order to guard against the importation of the wild polio virus from those countries within the sub-region where the virus is still circulating. 
 
In is official statement to launch the eradication campaign, Minister Gaye noted that the national immunization days is one of the key strategies of the Polio Eradication Initiative (PEI) which is an international initiative declared and adopted at the World Health Assembly meeting in May 1988. "PEI is the global eradication of poliomyelitis; the strategy is three-pronged, vaccination at base and outreach clinics, active search for active flaccid paralysis (AFP) and periodic national immunization days (NIDs)," he explained. 
 
According to him, in 1992, The Gambia launched its own national polio eradication initiative under the purview of the Expanded Programme on Immunization (EPI). "The overall goal of the EPI, is to reduce children morbidity and mortality resulting from vaccine-preventable diseases. Several national immunisation campaigns were conducted in the country over the past two years, on all occasions and over 95% of the target population from 10 to 5 years olds were vaccinated against polio," he said.
 
He revealed that The Gambia's EPI is presently addressing ten disease conditions which includes tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis (or whopping cough), tetanus, measles, yellow fever, hepatitis B, haemophilus influenza type b, pneumococcal diseases and poliomyelitis. He added that the World Health Organisation has estimated that about 265,000 children are needlessly crippled every year in the developing countries alone.
 
According to Dr Gaye in 2004 at a meeting of the Africa Regional certification committee held in Tanzania, The Gambia, together with seven other countries, were declared polio free. Despite being declared a polio free country and successes registered so far, he added, The Gambia is still vulnerable to invasion by the polio virus as the country is in a region where there is still circulation of the polio virus.
 
He then called on all parents and guardians to ensure that all children within the specified age group are vaccinated during the NIDs campaign in order to protect them from polio. He then thanked the World Health Organisation, UNICEF, Rotary Club International, Child Fund, ActionAid The Gambia and other parents for the support in making the NIDs campaign a reality.
 
For his part, Dr Thomas Sukwa, the WHO representative in The Gambia recalled that in 1999, the World Health Assembly unanimously voted to accelerate the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. According to him, since then, the number of cases worldwide has been reduced in which Africa reported 551 cases and all of whom were from West Africa."Although this represented a reduction in the number of cases compared to 2008 where 8831cases were reported, much more remains to be done," he said.
 
The WHO boss said the continuing spread of wild polio virus in West Africa remains the single most important challenge for the interruption of wild polio virus transmission by the end of polio. He then highlighted the objective of the campaign saying "the objective of these synchronized NIDs, this year, is to interrupt cross-border transportation of wild polio virus by the end of 2010". To achieve this goal, he said NIDs must be the highest quality and must include high political commitment, effective coordination at the national and sub-regional levels, proper micro-planning at the sub-national level including cross-border activities such as identifying crossing points and deployment of technical and logistical support accordingly, good allocation of staff and supervision in high risk areas, daily monitoring of operational activities and independent monitoring of the process after each round.
 
He then observed that despite the gains by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative around the world, and Africa a particular, polio is fighting back in Africa and that 11 of the 19 polio infected countries are within Ecowas.   For her part Oumu Taal, the chairperson of Polio Plus Committee of Rotary Club said Gambia is on target and is launching the synchronized NIDs along with 19 countries in West and Central Africa that will reach 85 million children. This she added, proves government's unflinching resolve and readiness to give its full attention and support to the health sector, the welfare of its people and most particularly to the welfare of the youngest and most vulnerable of the society.
 
For his part, Yusupha Sanyang, the deputy mayor of Kanifing Municipal Council urged all parents, guardians and caregivers to take the campaign seriously and ensure that all target children are reached within these four days. He added that polio is a disease caused by a germ which kills or cripples mainly children. "It can be contracted by drinking water or eating food contaminated with faeces of an infected person. The signs and symptoms are mainly fever which can quickly progress into weakness of the limbs," he explained.