[afro-nets] AFRICA: Continent-wide polio immunisation drive begins

[Claudio Schuftan <claudio@hcmc.netnam.vn>]

AFRICA: Continent-wide polio immunisation drive begins
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NAIROBI, 25 February (IRIN) - A mass polio immunisation campaign
began on Friday across Africa, targeting 100 million children,
the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported.

The 22-nation synchronised campaign, dubbed the Coast-to-Coast
Polio Drive, comes as reports from Ethiopia indicated that a
child there had contracted polio, the first case in the country
in four years.

UNICEF said the polio drive was the first in a series of 2005
campaigns to stamp out polio in Africa, "which saw a fierce re-
surgence last year, endangering global eradication efforts".

UNICEF said, "With polio now in its low-transmission season, the
next few months are critical to stopping the virus." Polio is
spread by faecal-oral contact and can be prevented by an oral
vaccine.

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ethiopia and Eritrea, on
the southern and eastern edges of the epidemic, are among the
countries joining the campaign. In the west, UNICEF said, Côte
d'Ivoire was rejoining the effort for the first time since civil
unrest halted activities in November 2004, causing months of
concern after the country was re-infected early in the regional
epidemic.

"By reaching children cut off from the eradication effort by in-
security and the threat of violence, African leaders have a real
opportunity to halt polio's advance," Dr Ezio Murzi, UNICEF re-
gional director for West and Central Africa, was quoted as say-
ing.

UNICEF also reported that in Sudan, health officials were coop-
erating to immunise children in the north and south. Ethiopia,
Sudan's neighbour, was concentrating on activities along its
northern and western borders, where the new case was found, UNI-
CEF said.

Sudan convened a meeting in early February for nine neighbouring
countries to discuss cross-border immunisation coordination.

"In a reminder of the ease with which the virus travels, two re-
cent cases in Saudi Arabia appear to be related to a virus
originating in Nigeria and entering via Sudan," UNICEF said.
"Nigeria accounts for over 60 percent of cases worldwide."

The UN World Health Organization (WHO) regional director for Af-
rica, Dr Luis Sambo, said: "Eradication in Africa requires not
only reaching all children in the newly-infected areas, but most
importantly, immunising every child in those countries which
have never interrupted transmission - Nigeria and Niger."

UNICEF quoted health officials as saying that progress made
since the first response to the outbreak in Africa - massive co-
ordinated immunisation campaigns in October and November 2004 -
had been positive, but tenuous. It said success in the second
phase of this eradication effort, coupled with improved access
to routine immunisation, was critical to stopping the epidemic.

To finance this year's immunisation rounds, US $75 million would
be needed by July and some $200 million would be required in
2006, UNICEF said.

During the campaign, UNICEF said, vaccinators would be deliver-
ing vitamin A drops with the polio vaccine in many places - an
immunity-boosting strategy that has saved some 1.2 million lives
over 12 years.

It said further mass polio vaccination campaigns in Africa were
scheduled for April and May and again in late 2005.

WHO, Rotary International, the US Centres for Disease Control
and Prevention, and UNICEF are the organisations spearheading
the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988 to
help eradicate the disease.

[For more information see: http://www.polioeradication.org/]


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