To the editor,

I am writing in response to your article concerning the

anti-polio campaign which appears on page 18 of your Jan 27 - Feb 9

issue.

The article is generally accurate but contains three numeric

errors that need to be brought to attention.

The first is the number of

children to be vaccinated. The most we expect to vaccinate is 1.7 million, and

this number may be an over estimate. Therefore the two million number is too

high. I realize the two million figure likely resulted from rounding the 1.7

million figure up, but the resulting two million figure is too high.

The

numbers of posts will be slightly more than 9600, so the 10,000 post estimate is

also too high. This is a less serious matter than the above.

Most serious

of all is the statement implying that more than 10,000 villages will be left out

of the campaign due to insecurity. There are only some 13,200 villages in all of

Cambodia and we estimate the numbers that will be difficult to reach because of

security problems to be less than 5% of that total. The 10,000 figure which

appears in the article is not only grossly inaccurate but will be unsettling to

government officials sensitive to reports about the amount of insecurity in the

country.

- Ly Nareth, (CNHE