WHO plans 'rapid-response campaign' to contain spread of polio in
Africa
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http://www.canada.com/health/story.html?id=A937A8D1-79F0-450A-9164-FD3F2A23238C
Canadian Press
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
GENEVA (AP) - With polio continuing to spread in Africa, the
United Nations health agency is preparing to shore up its effort
to wipe out the devastating disease worldwide, an official said
Wednesday.
"We will have to do rapid-response campaigns in these countries
so they don't continue to have cases," said Melissa Corkum,
spokeswoman for the World Health Organization. One child has re-
cently been reported infected with polio in Benin and another in
Cameroon, said Corkum. Both countries had previously been con-
sidered free of polio.
The disease appears to have spread from neighbouring Nigeria,
where it is still endemic. Five other countries in the region
also reported polio has spread to them in recent months.
WHO hopes urgent immunization programs in Benin and Cameroon
will prevent the spread of the disease, Corkum said.
Ministers of health from the six countries worst affected by po-
lio are holding an emergency meeting in Geneva on Thursday to
intensify immunization campaigns with the aim of stopping polio
virus transmission by the end of 2004, a year ahead of WHO's
goal of eradicating the disease globally.
Invited to the meeting are representatives of the countries,
where the polio virus is still considered endemic: Nigeria, In-
dia, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan and Niger.
Polio usually infects children under the age of five through
contaminated drinking water and attacks the central nervous sys-
tem, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and, in
some cases, death.
When WHO and other organizations launched the Global Polio
Eradication Initiative in 1988, 125 countries were affected by
the disease. It has since been eradicated in Europe, the Ameri-
cas, much of Asia and Australia.
Until recently the biggest problem was in India but a major out-
break began in the northern Nigerian state Kano in the summer.
Experts blame insufficient coverage during mass polio-
vaccination campaigns.
© Copyright 2004 The Canadian Press
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Dr Rana Jawad Asghar
Program Manager Child Survival, Mozambique
Provincial Coordinator Sofala Province, Mozambique
Health Alliance International, Seattle, WA, USA
http://depts.washington.edu/haiuw/
Coordinator South Asian Public Health Forum
http://www.saphf.org
mailto:jawad@alumni.washington.edu
http://www.DrJawad.com