WHO warns of a polio epidemic in Africa
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《英国医生杂志》
Geneva
Africa could be on the brink of a major poliomyelitis epidemic after a child in Sudan's crisis ridden Dafur region was found to have been paralysed by the disease last month, World Health Organization officials warned on Tuesday.
It was the first confirmed case of polio, which mainly affects children under the age of five, in the country for three years.
Sudan is the tenth African country in which the disease has reappeared since Nigeria's Islamic states suspended immunisation last August. WHO officials believe that the virus travelled from Nigeria across Chad to Sudan.
"The virus is spreading at an alarming pace," said David Heymann, the WHO epidemiologist in charge of the global polio eradication campaign.
"African countries have worked rapidly and effectively to eradicate polio; now the tragedy is that many of them are becoming reinfected," Dr Heymann said.
Nigeria's failure to participate fully in the programme has been a major setback to achieving WHO's goal of eradicating polio globally by the end of 2004 and the main reason why the number of polio cases has nearly doubled globally to 333 from 183 this time last year.
The other reason for the increase is low coverage of the vaccine in the 10 previously polio free countries, which besides Sudan are Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, C?te d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo.
When the eradication initiative was launched in 1988 polio was endemic in 125 countries. Today it is endemic in Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India.
Islamic states in Nigeria that suspended immunisation claimed that the vaccine caused sterility and was a US plot to spread HIV infection.(Fiona Fleck)
Africa could be on the brink of a major poliomyelitis epidemic after a child in Sudan's crisis ridden Dafur region was found to have been paralysed by the disease last month, World Health Organization officials warned on Tuesday.
It was the first confirmed case of polio, which mainly affects children under the age of five, in the country for three years.
Sudan is the tenth African country in which the disease has reappeared since Nigeria's Islamic states suspended immunisation last August. WHO officials believe that the virus travelled from Nigeria across Chad to Sudan.
"The virus is spreading at an alarming pace," said David Heymann, the WHO epidemiologist in charge of the global polio eradication campaign.
"African countries have worked rapidly and effectively to eradicate polio; now the tragedy is that many of them are becoming reinfected," Dr Heymann said.
Nigeria's failure to participate fully in the programme has been a major setback to achieving WHO's goal of eradicating polio globally by the end of 2004 and the main reason why the number of polio cases has nearly doubled globally to 333 from 183 this time last year.
The other reason for the increase is low coverage of the vaccine in the 10 previously polio free countries, which besides Sudan are Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, the Central African Republic, Chad, C?te d'Ivoire, Ghana, and Togo.
When the eradication initiative was launched in 1988 polio was endemic in 125 countries. Today it is endemic in Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and India.
Islamic states in Nigeria that suspended immunisation claimed that the vaccine caused sterility and was a US plot to spread HIV infection.(Fiona Fleck)