"Communities in Aceh Province, Indonesia, already suffering in the wake of the tsunami that took hundreds of thousands of lives and destroyed hundreds of square kilometers in December 2004 now face a possible new menace with the first cases of polio for a decade recorded in Aceh despite an ongoing vaccination campaign," the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said in a statement.

Since April, 309 cases of polio have been reported in 10 Indonesian provinces.

Federation officials have urged authorities to carry out widespread vaccinations, set up grassroots campaigns to convince parents to inoculate their children and improve water systems to prevent the spread of waterborne diseases.

In the second stage of a nation-wide immunisation campaign involving the Indonesian Red Cross, UNICEF and the World Health Organization, and overseen by the Indonesian health ministry, 24 million children aged up to five years received oral vaccine last month.

Since the tsunami, Red Cross and Red Crescent societies have been involved in supplying clean water and cleaning wells filled by polluted water and debris, the statement said.

The federation's tsunami official, Johan Schaar, said Acehnese left homeless by the disaster were particularly vulnerable.

"Because camps by definition require people to live in extremely close proximity to each other, the risk of unsanitary conditions is increased and diseases like polio are spread through sewage-contaminated water," he said.

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