"It's a great success of the country like Bangladesh in terms of eradication of polio. It is fully free from polio at present," he said.

The ambassador who administered polio vaccine and vitamin-A capsule to the children of the employees of Telihati Tea Garden, about 10 km away from Sylhet town, said Japan would be further interested in providing support in health sector after seeing the success in the field.

The envoy is now on a three-day visit to Sylhet to witness different development projects being implemented with the financial support of Japanese government and other development organisations in Japan.

"Now the Japanese government has been providing 50 percent of the total cost of vaccine and if needed the assistance would be increased further for improving health status of the people in Bangladesh," Horiguchi said.

He suggested that the government take measures so that the bordering areas are not affected further by polio. As the neighboring country was not able to fully eradicate polio so far, Bangladesh has to be cautious in this regard," he added.

Madam Horiguchi, Tsutomu (Ray) Uchida, Chief Representative of Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and local representatives from WHO were present.