WHO: Spread of polio a global emergency

The spread of polio to countries previously considered free of the crippling disease represents a global health emergency, the World Health Organisation has said.

Pakistan, Cameroon, and Syria pose the greatest risk of exporting the virus to other countries, the Geneva-based WHO said yesterday. Those nations should declare national public health emergencies and ensure that residents have been vaccinated before they travel internationally, WHO director general Margaret Chan said, citing recommendations from an emergency committee.

Polio, driven to the brink of eradication in 2012, has resurged as conflicts from Sudan to Pakistan disrupt vaccination campaigns. The number of cases reached a record low of 223 globally in 2012 and jumped to 417 last year, according to the group. There have been 68 this year as of April 30, during what is usually polio’s “low season”, the UN health agency said.

“Conflict makes it very difficult for the vaccinators to get to the children who need vaccine,” said David Heymann, a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. “It’s been more difficult to finish than had been hoped.”

An €8.5bn eradication campaign backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Rotary International reduced polio to three countries in which it spreads locally: Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria.

In the past 12 months, the virus has spread to Syria, Iraq, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Kenya, and Somalia, according to the WHO.

While the number of cases in Afghanistan and Nigeria dropped by more than half last year, they jumped by 60% in Pakistan, where vaccination efforts have been hampered by rumours the shots cause infertility, and after the CIA used a fake vaccination programme to help hunt down Osama bin Laden.

“Any time there’s any reason to doubt vaccines, there are rumours that spread,” Heymann said.

The polio virus, which is spread through faeces, attacks the nervous system and can cause paralysis within hours, and death in as many as 10% of its victims. There is no cure.

Cases of polio, which paralysed generations around the globe and crippled former US president Franklin D Roosevelt, have dropped 99% since 1988, largely thanks to the campaign backed by Bill and Melinda Gates.

“The consequences of further international spread are particularly acute today given the large number of polio-free but conflict-torn and fragile states which have severely compromised routine immunisation services and are at high risk of re-infection,” the WHO said.