ADDIS ABABA, Feb. 19 (Xinhua) -- The Ethiopian government launched a nationwide polio vaccination campaign on Wednesday, targeting more than 13.8 million children.

The Ethiopia Public Health Institute (EPHI) said the campaign, which is set to begin Friday, will be administered across nine Ethiopian regions, with the aim of immunizing over 13.8 million children under the age of five, EPHI officials were quoted by the state-affiliated Fana Broadcasting Corporate as saying on Wednesday.

The East African country has prepared about 85,000 healthcare professionals to carry out the four-day vaccination campaign. The EPHI urged parents to vaccinate their children, regardless of whether they have been previously vaccinated against the virus.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Ethiopia has made "impressive progress" in eradicating polio. It said since the last case of wild poliovirus detected in January 2014, the country has experienced periodic outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses.

In November last year, the Ethiopian government partnered with the WHO to vaccinate over 5.6 million children with type 2 novel oral polio vaccine. The WHO said the vaccination campaign aimed to prevent transmission and circulation of variant poliovirus outbreaks.

The WHO said the weakened virus from the oral polio vaccine can mutate back into the active virus, potentially causing paralysis.

Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that largely affects children under five years old. The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the fecal-oral route, and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.