Afghanistan first to use new polio vaccine

GENEVA, Dec. 15 (Xinhua) -- A new polio vaccine was used for the first time in Afghanistan on Tuesday, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

From Tuesday to Thursday, polio immunization campaigns in Afghanistan will deliver the new vaccine to 2.8 million children under five in the country's southern and eastern regions.

The bivalent oral polio vaccine, recommended by an advisory body of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, provides protection against both surviving types of the virus.

Results of a clinical trial last June showed that the new vaccine was 30 percent more effective than the traditional version.

In southern Afghanistan, where security concerns limit access to children, the new vaccine maximizes the impact of contact with each child. Afghanistan is one of four countries where polio has yet to be eradicated. The other three are India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

The World Health Organization, Rotary International, the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF created the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988.