74m Africans must be immunised to halt polio threat, say experts

A massive immunization campaign targeting 74 million children in 22 African countries should be started up following confirmation that a recent polio outbreak has spread to the Darfur region of the Sudan.

Epidemiologists from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative have recommended the programme after it was found that five times as many children in West and Central Africa have been paralyzed so far this year compared to the same period last year.

The hardest hit is Nigeria, where 197 children have been paralyzed following the suspension of immunization in the north of the country late last year.

Only two countries in sub-Saharan Africa, Niger and Nigeria, were classified as polio-endemic at the start of last year; now children are paralyzed by the disease in 10 other countries as well.

In Darfur, a child was paralyzed on 20 May, the first confirmed case of polio in Sudan in more than three years. The virus in that case has been identified as closely linked to the virus which has spread through northern Nigeria and Chad recently.

“There is no question that the virus is spreading at an alarming pace,” said Dr David Heymann, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Representative for Polio Eradication.

UNICEF said an extra $100 million is needed to respond to this imminent epidemic. Already $3 billion has spent worldwide since 1998 in an attempt to eradicate polio.

The rapid spread of polio in sub-Saharan Africa is occurring as WHO figures show that the other four of the world’s six polio-endemic countries – Afghanistan, Egypt, India and Pakistan – are on target to be polio-free by the end of the year.

(gmcg)