GENEVA, Oct. 8 (Xinhuanet) -- More than 1 million polio vaccinators in 23 African countries launched on Friday a massive vaccination campaign, aiming to immunize 80 million children across the sub-Saharan Africa against polio over just four days.

    This campaign, as part of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, is a direct response to an ongoing polio epidemic in the region which risks paralyzing thousands of children for life.

    The Initiative is spearheaded by the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

    The eradication effort has united all levels of civil society in Africa to collectively wipe out this disease.

    Tens of thousands of traditional and religious leaders, school teachers, parents and Rotary club members will join nurses and an array of other volunteers and health workers to systematically go house-to-house and village-to-village, to hand-deliver the vaccineto every child under the age of five.

    The agencies stressed that the benefits of these campaigns mustbe underpinned by strong routine immunization services and prioritizing healthcare to the poorest communities.

    Smaller-scale activities held in 2000 and 2001 had previously stopped polio in all countries in the region, except Nigeria and Niger. In these two countries, immunization activities need improving if polio is to be stopped in Africa by the end of 2005, said the agencies.

    The ongoing polio outbreak originating in northern Nigeria was due to a combination of factors, including the suspension of poliocampaigns in mid-2003 in Kano, northern Nigeria, and small coverage of routine immunization in countries surrounding Nigeria.

    Polio campaigns were resumed in Kano on July 31, 2004. Enditem