GENEVA, Nov 13: Some 21 nations in the Middle East and nearby regions jointly made the eradication of polio an emergency priority and recognised that Pakistan was a key part of the problem, the World Health Organisation said on Wednesday.

The joint resolution by nations who are part of the UN health agency’s Eastern Mediterranean region has called on Pakistan to urgently vaccinate all of its children to prevent the virus from spreading internationally.

Pakistan also approved the resolution, which the Geneva-based agency says includes Afghanistan, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

The problem is particularly challenging in Pakistan, where a UN-backed eradication campaign has suffered from violence and mistrust directed against polio workers and people who want their children vaccinated.

Earlier this week, WHO officials said the polio virus had been confirmed in 13 of 22 children who became paralysed in a northern Syrian province. The health agency said the Syria outbreak came from a strain that originated in Pakistan, where, along with Afghanistan and Nigeria, the disease was endemic.

It said the virus had been detected in Egypt, and closely related strains of Pakistani origin turned up in sewage samples in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, but higher immunisation rates in those places helped keep the virus in check.

A third of the nations in the WHO’s Eastern Mediterranean region were conducting mass polio vaccination programmes, the agency said, and more such campaigns were planned for December.

The nations in those regions also said they were trying to improve access for health workers to reach children who had not yet been vaccinated. WHO said its emergency “outbreak response” to polio in Syria and the region was expected to continue for at least six to eight months more.—Agencies