1 March, 2012 – “I do not want my daughter to suffer the way I did, and still do’” said Lora, a middle-aged Congolese mother who was paralysed by polio as a young child. “This vaccination will help my baby to grow up strong and healthy.” Last week, while UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Mia Farrow was visiting the village of Kasabondo in Katanga, one of four polio-infected provinces in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Lora brought her nine-month-old daughter to be vaccinated against polio at the local health centre.

During her ten day visit to Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ms Farrow witnessed the daily efforts of community health workers to deliver quality medical care, including in the most remote rural areas. The star used the opportunity to draw international attention to the need for high quality polio vaccination campaigns and to meet with the countries’ leadership.

“India has demonstrated that we can win the fight against polio and protect all children from the suffering of this potentially deadly and paralysing disease,” said Farrow, who herself had polio as a child, and whose son, adopted from India, is paralysed from the waist down because of polio.

Both Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are considered to have re-established polio transmission. This means that, while both have successfully interrupted transmission in the past, they have since been re-infected and now suffer from ongoing transmission. Chad and the Democratic Republic of the Congo finished last year with the second- and third-most polio cases in the world, with 132 and 93 cases respectively.