The United Nations’ secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, has called on warring parties in countries where polio is endemic to ensure that healthcare workers are given safe passage to carry out vaccination programmes.

Ban, who was talking at a meeting on polio eradication at the UN general assembly in New York last week, urged all sections of the community in affected countries to come together to eradicate polio “once and for all.”

He said, “Where there is fighting and insecurity we need warring parties to allow aid workers to operate. I appeal to all parties to provide safe passage to health workers to vaccinate children.”

Ban was talking three months after a polio vaccination worker was shot and killed in Pakistan. In …