Morning Briefing

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday "launched a national polio vaccination campaign in Angola, where the crippling disease has returned despite being eradicated in 2001, and praised the government for its leadership on the issue," the U.N. News Centre reports. "Angola provides a large majority of the funding needed to vaccinate the country's children," the news service writes. Ban said the return of polio to Angola within four years after it was eradicated in 2001 illustrated the importance of immunization against polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases, as well as responding to any new polio cases, according to the news service (2/27).