Pakistan, Afghans to try to stop polio on border

ISLAMABAD, Dec 1 (Reuters) Pakistan and Afghanistan are to set up five checkposts on their common border to screen children for polio and give them vaccine drops in the hope of eliminating one of the world's last reservoirs of the disease.

The infectious disease has been eliminated in developed nations but persists in parts of India, Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Most of the Afghan and Pakistani cases have occured along their border where both country's forces are battling Islamist militants.

Vaccination teams have been unable to reach some areas because of the insecurity.

Pakistan has reported 33 cases of the crippling childhood disease in 2006 while Afghanistan has reported 29.

Pakistani health officials say the movement of an estimated 1.7 million children across the porous border every year can spread the disease.

Health ministers from the two countries announced the new border checkpoints after talks in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, today.

''We have right now two points but now we want to have five more new checkpoints between the borders to coordinate the movement of cross-border populations,'' Pakistani Health Minister Mohammad Naseer Khan told a news conference.

''This will go a long way in helping us to monitor and also to provide polio drops to all the children and the migratory population between the borders,'' Khan said.

The World Health Organisation will coordinate with Pakistani and Afghan health authorities in deciding the location of the new checkposts, Khan said.

Relations between the neighbours have cooled sharply during the past year over Afghan complaints that resurgent Taliban militants get help on the Pakistani side of the border.

But Afghan Health Minister Sayad Mohammad Fatemi said the two countries needed each other's help to fight poverty and disease.

''Diseases do not recognise borders,'' Fatemi said.

''We are committed to fight together against our common enemies, which are diseases, poverty, low literacy rate and ignorance, and we need each other's support,'' he said.

REUTERS PDM BS1602