Botswana starts polio fight
2004-05-10 20:35
Johannesburg - Botswana's Health Minister Lesego Motsumi kicked off a massive emergency polioimmunisation campaign, following the re-introduction of the virus from Nigeria, the World Health Organisation (WHO) reported.
The WHO, Rotary International, the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) and Unicef (the UN Children's Fund) said in a statement that 200 000 children from Botswana would be immunised.
"The massive effort being launched in Botswana today (Monday) is testimony to Africa's commitment to getting polio eradication back on track and ending this terrible disease," said Jonathan Majiyagbe, President of Rotary International.
Addressing the Washington Press Club on Monday, Majiyagbe said: "Just eight years ago, in 1996, polio paralysed more than 75 000 children across the continent. Last year, fewer than 500 cases were reported in Africa."
Rotary International is one of the four spearheading partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and the first with a vision of a polio-free world.
From Monday until Friday, approximately 2 600 vaccinators, district and national health supervisors and volunteers in Botswana will be involved in immunising the children - all under five.
A second immunisation campaign will take place from June 14-18.
Unicef and the WHO in Botswana are supporting the country's government, by supplying the oral polio vaccine, training health workers, advertising the campaign and ensuring that the refrigerated 'cold chain' equipment is in place to safely transport the vaccine to the children.
"The government has given priority to the campaign and has committed both human and financial resources - a total of $1.2m, of which $710 000 is from the government," said Motsumi, at the launch of the campaign.
"I look forward to the day when no child in Botswana will be at risk from the life-long physical disability and mental anguish associated with this terrible paralytic disease."
The WHO said prior to this, polio had not been seen in Botswana since 1991.
The Botswana campaign comes one week before Majiyagbe travels to the World Health Assembly in Geneva, to attend a meeting of the spearheading partners and health ministers of the remaining endemic countries, including Nigeria.
The WHO said the polio virus was now endemic in only six countries, down from over 125 when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched in 1988.
The six countries with the indigenous wild polio virus are Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Niger, Afghanistan and Egypt.
- SAPA