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Polio toll swells in Yemen
11/05/2005 11:21 - (SA)
Geneva - The outbreak of polio in Yemen has swelled to 63 cases, making it one of the worst epidemics in the world, the UN health agency said on Wednesday.
The number of cases will probably soon exceed 100, as many more suspected cases are still being investigated, said Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesperson for the World Health Organisation's polio eradication campaign.
Before the first polio cases in the Middle Eastern country surfaced last month, Yemen was believed to be to be free of the disease.
"They are having a pretty big epidemic there," Rosenbauer said. "But we should be able to stop the virus relatively quickly."
WHO has organised a national immunisation drive in Yemen to take place in late May, for which 6 million vaccination doses have already been sent. The doses are expected to arrive in Yemen early next week, Rosenbauer said.
Polio is a waterborne disease that usually infects young children, attacking the nervous system and causing paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and sometimes death.
- SAPA
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