Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, Dr Suleiman Abdelrahman, announced that the Sudan government has accepted a ceasefire in the areas controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Army-North in the Blue Nile and South Kordofan states, with the purpose to enable vaccinations by mid October as proposed by the UN.
The vaccination campaign will target 160,000 children in both the Blue Nile state and South Kordofan state, as estimated by the Sudanese Ministry of Health, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the UN Children’s Fund (Unicef).
Abdelrahman, who is also Sudan’s chief negotiator for humanitarian affairs, confirmed the government’s approval of the vaccination campaign. He explained that the two-weeks-campaign will be carried out by a well trained national staffs, under the auspices of the UN, the AU, and the Arab League.
He commended the role played by Unicef and WHO for their generous support to the vaccination campaign in the war torn areas.
Since the polio virus re-emerged in the Horn of Africa, in May this year, there have been at least 160 polio cases in Somalia alone, and the virus has spread to Kenya and Ethiopia.
File photo (Albert González Farran / Unamid)
Related:
Sudanese parliament welcomes SPLA-N ceasefire (4 September 2013)