Mobile health teams in Bangladesh are conducting “child-to-child” searches to reach the remaining half million children not vaccinated during a nationwide polio immunization campaign launched on January 7.

The campaign’s goal was to vaccinate 22 million children under five. Only 560,791 children short of reaching it, mobile teams have been conducting house visits, concluding on 11 January, to vaccinate the remainder, Arun Bhadra Thapa, World Health Organization’s country representative, told IRIN.

Hard-to-reach areas include hilly sub-districts, coastal belts, temporary river islands known as `chars’ and swampy marshlands, he added.

To reach every child, more support and supervision are needed for hard-to-reach and high-risk areas, said UN Children’s Fund representative Pascal Villeneuve.

Neighbouring India is one of four countries worldwide where polio remains endemic, the others being Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Mahmuda Akhter, a medical officer with local NGO Family Planning Association of Bangladesh, who participated in the most recent vaccinations, said reaching the children of migrants in areas bordering India was the main challenge now.

“Migrants there should get the attention,” she said.

Despite the challenges, the program is running properly and reaching almost all children, she said.

Read more of the story here at the IRIN news service:
BANGLADESH: Trying to stay polio-free