Polio spreads from Pakistan into China

Polio has broken out in China for the first time since 1999 after being imported from Pakistan. Nine cases have been confirmed in China and polio is now considered to have spread nationwide in Pakistan, mainly due to insecurity that has halted vaccination campaigns in areas including the Khyber tribal region.

The World Health Organization said there is a high risk of the crippling virus spreading further during the annual Haj pilgrimage, as Pakistani Muslims join people from all over the world in Mecca.

“Endemic polio, in other words where the virus lives, is continuing in just four countries around the world,” said Oliver Rosenbauer , the Spokesman for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative at the World Health Organization.

The four countries are India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.

“That’s very few countries, of course, but the problem is that it is a transmissible disease, and so as populations travel from these areas you always run the risk that polio-free areas are going to be re-infected,” Rosenbauer told Vatican Radio. “It just underscores the urgent need to keep up the pressure in trying to eradicate the disease in the remaining endemic areas.”

Listen to the full interview by Charles Collins with Oliver Rosenbauer: