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Afghanistan, one of just four countries in the world where polio is endemic, has seen the number of cases surge this year. There have been 28 confirmed polio cases in 2006, compared to only four in the same period last year, according to the Afghan Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) officials.

Nearly all of this year’s polio cases have been recorded in southern Afghanistan, which is going through a deadly phase of Taliban-led violence. MoPH officials said Kandahar was leading the list with 16 cases; Helmand registered six cases and Urozgan two cases, with Zabul and Farah each having one case this year.

The deteriorating security in the south has been one of the most significant challenges for health workers in their drive to fully implement the polio immunisation on the ground, analysts say.

During the vaccination drive, which is led by the MoPH, with the support of UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), some 45,000 health workers and volunteers will go house-to-house to administer the oral vaccine across the country, explained MoPH spokesman Abdullah Fahim.

Along with receiving the polio vaccine, some 7 million children aged between six months and five years will also get vitamin A supplements, which help to boost resistance to other childhood diseases, MoPH officials said.

Meanwhile, following recent polio cases in western Herat and central Bamyan provinces, WHO officials warned that the virus was spreading in the country.

Unregulated travel to and from Pakistan, where polio still exists, difficulty in establishing health services, a lack of awareness and poor communication with community leaders were the main factors fuelling polio's spread in the impoverished Central Asian state, health officials said.

According to WHO, polio is a highly infectious virus that invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in hours. It can strike at any age but mainly affects children aged under five. It enters the human body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine. Besides Afghanistan polio remains endemic in Nigeria, India and Pakistan.