FW: Afghan and Indian Cricket teams against Polio

[dipesh mehta]

Ahead of their T20 clash in Colombo, the Indian and Afghanistan cricket teams yesterday joined hands to help end polio by exchanging bats signed by the two teams and appealing to parents to immunize their children against the crippling disease.
Indian cricketers Virender Sehwag , Suresh Raina, Harbhajan Singh and Rohit Sharma met with Afghanistan captain Nowroz Mangal, and his team mates Mohammad Shahzad, Karim Sadeq and Mohammad Ashghar Stanikzai, to exchange cricket bats signed by both national Twenty20 teams. 
The bats were exchanged as symbols of both countries' commitment to end polio once and for all. On the teams' return to their home countries, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the organisers of the event, will present the bats to the Governments of Afghanistan and India to underline cricket's support in the fight against polio.
During the Afghanistan vs India clash today, UNICEF, with the support of the International Cricket Council (ICC), will display polio eradication messages on the electronic advertising boards and on the electronic scoreboard. The messages, in English, Hindi and Pashto, will express support for
Afghanistan's fight against polio and call on Afghan parents, in the local Pashto language, to immunize their children against polio.
Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are the only three remaining countries yet to stop poliovirus transmission.
India stopped polio in January 2011 and is now committed to supporting Pakistan and Afghanistan in eradicating the virus across south Asia, while maintaining very high levels of childhood immunity against polio through regular polio immunization campaigns to guard against an importation of the virus, a UNICEF press release said.

Dipesh mehta