Iraqi medical workers vaccinating children against polio again

[Rose Siding]

BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the Al Aelaam district of Baghdad, two women carrying a cooler full of polio vaccine and pieces of blue chalk go house to house, knocking on doors and squeezing two drops of the slightly bitter liquid into the mouth of each child younger than 5.

Though most of the children wail, mothers and fathers smile as they watch vaccination teams put a mark on the front gate of each home, noting who's been immunized and who hasn't.

For the parents, it's the return of a welcome tradition that assures their children are safe from at least one threat in dangerous post-invasion Iraq. For Iraqi officials, it's a small step in a long campaign to rebuild the country's public health system, which was devastated by the war.

After a frightening outbreak in 2000, polio was eradicated from Iraq in 2001. But like so many other diseases - typhoid, hepatitis and tuberculosis among them - it loomed anew as a danger after U.S.-led forces invaded in March 2003.

Air strikes destroyed a Baghdad immunizations warehouse, wasting millions of doses. Vaccines refrigerated elsewhere were spoiled during the frequent post-war blackouts.

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