Polio eradicated in Somalia

2008-03-25 15:13

Geneva - A United Nations-backed immunisation drive has banished polio from Somalia, global health campaigners says, three years after the crippling childhood disease returned to the war-torn African country.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative - a partnership between the World Health Organisation, the Rotary Club, the UN Children's Fund and the United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention - described the victory as "a historic result".

Four years ago, the Initiative's international vaccination teams had hoped to eradicate polio - a virus that paralysed and withered infants' limbs and left them handicapped for life - by the end of 2005.

Unfortunately, however, radical Nigerian Islamists spread false rumours that the polio vaccine had been contaminated in order to sterilise African girls.

The campaign faltered and before the situation in Nigeria had been brought under control travellers from the region had spread the polio virus back into countries that were once free of the disease, including Somalia.

According to a statement from the Initiative, 10 000 health volunteers went door-to-door in Somalia despite the ongoing guerrilla violence and managed to inoculate 1.8 million children against the disease.

Thanks to their efforts, no polio cases had been recorded in Somalia since March 2007. Polio had now been wiped out in the vast majority of countries, but remained endemic in Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

- AFP