UN urges redoubled efforts to eradicate polio ‘once and for all’
October 26, 2013 - The world is closer than ever to eradicating polio, the United
Nations World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday, but warned that children
continue to be at risk, particularly in the Horn of Africa where a tapering outbreak
has been confirmed, and amid reports of suspected cases in Syria. “This is no time
for complacency, and efforts must be redoubled to ensure this disease is eradicated
once and for all. World Polio Day marks the perfect opportunity to remind us of this
fact,” WHO said in its message for the day. World Polio Day is observed annually
on 24 October, which marks the birth of United States virologist, Jonas Salk, who
was the leader of the team that invented a polio vaccine in 1955. In Sudan, the
UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator, Ali Al-Za’tari, today welcomed official
confirmation that the Government there agreed to a polio vaccination campaign in South
Kordofan and Blue Nile states, areas controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement
(SPLM-N) and cut off since the military conflict began in 2011. Earlier this month,
the UN Security Council called on the Government to start the campaign, alarmed by
the “grave concern” at the imminent threat of the spread of polio in Sudan’s South
Kordofan province and the continuing outbreak. “Sudan’s future lies in the health
of its children. This is an opportunity for all parties to put children’s health before
politics and ensure that this campaign goes ahead without delay,” Mr. Al-Za’tari said.
The two-week campaign is due to be carried out starting on 5 November by WHO, the
UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs
(OCHA) and partners, which have put in place plans to vaccinate children under the
age of five in these areas. Polio, whose virus enters the body through the mouth
and multiplies in the intestine attacking the nervous system, is highly infectious
and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue,
headache, vomiting, and stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infections
leads to irreversible paralysis and among those paralyzed, five to 10 per cent die
when their breathing muscles become immobilized. The cases of wild poliovirus (WPV)
in Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan - the last three endemic countries – are down
40 per cent compared to this time last year, the WHO reported. Afghanistan may have
succeeded in halting endemic poliovirus circulation, with no cases in the traditionally
endemic southern region since November 2012. Meanwhile, in Somalia, a two-year-old
girl from the capital, Mogadishu, became the first confirmed case of polio in Somalia
in more than six years following confirmation in May. The country had been polio-free
since March 2007. A polio outbreak has since paralyzed nearly 100 children and threatens
hundreds of thousands more who are not vaccinated. On Syria, the WHO received reports
on 17 October of a cluster of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases, used to describe
a sudden onset of the disease. Syria had already been considered at high-risk for
this and other vaccine-preventable diseases, but it has not experienced a case of
polio since 1999. Initial results from a national polio laboratory in Damascus indicate
that two of the cases, detected earlier this month in Deir Al Zour province, could
be positive but final results are being awaited from the regional reference laboratory
of the Eastern Mediterranean Region of WHO. The Ministry said a surveillance alert
issued for the region to actively search for additional potential cases. An urgent
response is currently being planned across the country. (Source: UN)