Angola Greatest Threat to Polio Eradication in Africa - WHO

(HN, October 2, 2010) - An immunization campaign is taking place this weekend in Angola to stop a polio outbreak in the country and to prevent the disease from being exported to neighbouring countries on the continent.

Rod Curtis of the World Health Organization (WHO) said only three countries in Africa have recorded any polio cases in the past four months, namely Nigeria, Angola, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

He said the DRC was infected with polio across the boarder from Angola. Also, areas in Angola that had previously been polio-free have been re-infected this year from an expanding outbreak.

According to data from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) there have been 24 recorded cases of polio in Angola in the past 12 months - the most in this period of all African countries. Other infected countries in the continent are: Nigeria, DRC, Chad, Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Niger, Liberia and Sierra Leone. GPEI says Angola has the highest number of wild polio virus (WPV1) cases in Africa - and the third-highest number in the world this year, behind only Tajikistan and Pakistan.

The good news is West Africa remains polio free, Curtis told a news briefing in Geneva monitored by HUMNEWS.

The vaccination campaigns in Angola target 5.6 million children with 7 million doses of oral polio vaccine. There was also a need to close existing immunization gaps. Up to 30 per cent of children were missed in campaigns and this had become a real focus for the national immunization days. WHO believed that the outbreak can be rapidly stopped, even by the end of the year, if these gaps are closed.

Marixie Mercado of the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said given the upsurge in cases, UNICEF and WHO emphasized that, now more than ever, the key to ending polio is the full mobilization and commitment of all sectors and all stakeholders - especially local-level administrative leadership in planning and implementing the campaigns.

This weekend - and again at the end of the month - UNICEF, WHO and Rotary International are supporting tens of thousands of volunteers, health workers, parents, communities and traditional leaders to go from house to house and village to village in Angola to make sure that every child under the age of 5 iss reached with a polio vaccine.