UN steps up polio action plan
2004-01-14 14:06
Geneva - 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 on 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 Organisation.
One child has recently been reported infected with polio in Benin and another in Cameroon, said Corkum. Both countries had previously been considered free of polio.
The disease appears to have spread from neighbouring Nigeria, where it is still endemic. Five other countries in the region also have reported polio has spread to them in recent months.
WHO hopes urgent immunisation programs in Benin and Cameroon will prevent the spread of the disease there, Corkum said.
Ministers of health from the six countries worst affected by polio are holding an emergency meeting in Geneva on Thursday to intensify immunisation campaigns with the aim of stopping poliovirus 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, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Afghanistan and Niger.
Polio usually infects children under the age of five through contaminated drinking water and attacks the central nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and, in some cases, death.
When WHO and other organisations launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative in 1988, 125 countries were affected by the disease. It has since been eradicated in Europe, the Americas, much of Asia and Australia.
Until recently the biggest problem was in India, but a major outbreak began in the northern Nigerian state of Kano in the summer. Experts blame insufficient coverage during mass polio campaigns and routine treatment.
- AP