World Reverses Into Polio Epidemic
The world may be reeling into a new polio epidemic with ten countries already affected, reports the World Health Organisation (WHO).
By Azore Opio with reports
Afghanistan, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Israel, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia and Syria are already experiencing cases of the horrendous disease, which causes spinal and respiratory paralysis, and can kill.
Poliomyelitis became a major public health issue in late Victorian times with major epidemics in Europe and the United States. The disease remains incurable but vaccines assisted in its eradication.
The World Health Organization (WHO) believes poliovirus has broken out again is fast spreading, posing a worldwide health concern and a public health emergency.
The WHO recommends citizens of affected countries travelling abroad carry a vaccination certificate.
Pakistan, Cameroon, and Syria "pose the greatest risk of further wild poliovirus exportations in 2014," says the UN Wire.
The WHO recorded 417 cases of polio worldwide for the whole of 2013. For 2014, it had already recorded 68 cases by 30 April – up from 24 in the same period last year.
Polio mainly affects children under five years old.
The virus is transmitted through contaminated food and water, and multiplies in the intestine. It can then invade the nervous system, causing paralysis in one in every 200 infections. It is capable of causing death within hours.
"The conditions for a public health emergency of international concern have been met," said Bruce Aylward, WHO Assistant Director General.
"The international spread of polio to date in 2014 constitutes an 'extraordinary event' and a public health risk to other states for which a coordinated international response is essential," the WHO's International Health Regulations Emergency Committee said in statement.
"If unchecked, this situation could result in failure to eradicate globally one of the world's most serious vaccine preventable diseases."
The polio virus is endemic in just three countries – Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. But attacks on vaccination campaigns in Pakistan in particular have allowed the virus to spread across borders.
Syria, which was polio-free for 14 years, was re-infected with the virus from Pakistan.
