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Health ministers from the last six countries in the world still trying to eradicate polio announced plans Thursday to immunize 250 million children multiple times during 2004.

The plan aims to wipe out the final “reservoirs” of the disease, which used to paralyze and cripple hundreds of thousands of children every year but is now on the verge of elimination.

Ministers meeting at the World Health Organization headquarters issued a statement saying they will need an extra $150-million (U.S.) in donations beyond the money already available under the Global Polio Eradication Initiative — the world's largest public-health project.

The countries where polio still exists are Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger, Nigeria and Pakistan.

“Nigeria is determined to break the chains of polio transmission for the sake of our children, our neighbours' children and the children of the world,” said Nigerian Health Minister Eyitayo Lambo, whose country has the worst problem.

Multiple immunization campaigns are needed to ensure that no children are missed.

“We have a unique window of opportunity in which to end polio forever,” Indian Health Minister Sushma Swaraj said in a message from New Delhi. “We will seize this opportunity by reaching each and every child with vaccine.”

She said preliminary data show there has already been an 84-per-cent reduction in polio cases in India in 2003 compared with the previous year.

The situation is less rosy in Nigeria, where the polio problem is growing. Immunization projects were brought to a halt late last year in Kano state because of rumours that the vaccine caused sterility. WHO said these are unfounded.

“With immunization activities stalled in Kano and polio campaigns of a sub-optimal quality in other northern states, polio was able to creep back across Nigeria and spread into previously polio-free countries,” WHO said.

Seven countries in Africa have been “reinfected,” forcing health workers to carry out immunization campaigns across western and central Africa.

Polio usually infects children under the age of five through contaminated drinking water. It attacks the central nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and, in some cases, death.

When WHO and other organizations launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, 125 countries were affected by the disease. It has since been eradicated in Europe, the Americas, much of Asia and Australia. The initiative has set itself a target of eradicating polio globally by the end of 2005.

“After an international investment of $3-billion over 15 years and the successful engagement of over 200 countries and 20 million volunteers, polio could be the first disease of the 21st century to be eradicated,” WHO said.