Polio vaccinations for 20m children in Middle East

More than 20 million children in Syria, Iraq and other countries in the region are to get polio vaccinations over the next five days, dpa cited UN agencies and local partners as saying Sunday. The mass vaccination campaign is the first to cover Iraq since the country last week confirmed its first case in 14 years of poliomyelitis. The contagious, crippling disease mainly affects children under 5 years. It cannot be cured, but it can be prevented with vaccination. The move is part of an international response to a major polio outbreak in war-torn Syria that was confirmed in October - the first to hit the country since 1999. The UN children's agency UNICEF said that 27 children in Syria have now been paralysed by polio, most of them in the eastern province of Deir al-Zour.