Home > HEALTH: The End of Polio Is Near
By Gustavo Capdevila
The spread of poliomyelitis could be
totally curbed this year worldwide and the disease could be
eradicated by 2005, thanks to the removal of the last
obstacles in Africa, David Heymann, World Health Organisation
(WHO) special representative on polio eradication, said
Tuesday.
The polio immunisation campaign resumed over the weekend in
the northern Nigerian state of Kano, where it had been
suspended a year ago due to rumours about the safety of the
vaccines, the WHO expert told reporters in Geneva.
Circulating around that largely Muslim area were ’’rumours
that either (the vaccine) was contaminated with HIV (the AIDS
virus) or that it contained elements of family planning which
sterilised young girls,’’ Heymann added.
Due to the rumours, Kano Governor Ibrahim Shekaru called off
the vaccination campaign, as did authorities in other
northern states in Nigeria.
The suspension of the campaign led to a resurgence of polio
cases in Kano and other Nigerian states, and in neighbouring
countries that had been declared free of the disease. Of
Nigeria’s 37 states, 30 have reported cases of polio, and the
disease has reappeared in a total of 10 African nations.
The Nigerian government subsequently set up a commission to
evaluate the safety of the vaccines, and the authorities in
Kano set up two separate teams of experts to do the same.
The verdicts handed down by the commissions cleared up the
doubts and recommended that the immunisation activities
continue in Kano state.
When the vaccinations were resumed on Saturday, Governor
Shekaru himself administered the vaccine to four children of
government officials, which ’’seems to be a message many
people were waiting for,’’ said Heymann.
He added that while there was still some resistance to the
vaccination campaign from certain religious leaders, the
Nigerian press had overall taken a ’’very positive’’ attitude
to the resumption of the campaign.
Heymann said the renewed vaccination efforts in northern
Nigeria would allow that region to ’’catch up’’ with the
southern states and the rest of West Africa, and to prepare
for the synchronised immunisation campaigns that are to be
carried out in 22 countries of West and Central Africa from
September to November.
Polio is an infectious viral disease of the central nervous
system that causes muscular atrophy. The greatest incidence
of the disease, also known as infantile paralysis, is in
children between the ages of five and 10.
So far this year, 538 children have been infected worldwide,
including 430 — 80 percent of the total — in Nigeria, said
Heymann.
Other affected countries include India, Pakistan, Afghanistan
and Egypt, which ’’have the lowest ever reported numbers of
cases of polio’’ this year, he added.
’’We believe that they will be able to interrupt
transmission...in the next few months,’’ said Heymann. The
Asian countries ’’are now in the highest transmission season
for polio...and they have been able to maintain very low
levels, which is highly encouraging.’’
He warned, however, that there are still risks in those
countries, like the possibility that governments will feel
confident ’’and say: we have done the job,’’ let down their
guard, and allow polio to return.
The four bodies behind the global campaign — WHO, the United
Nations children’s fund (UNICEF), Rotary International and
the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention — have a
goal of complete eradication of the disease around the world
by 2005.
In the case of Africa, transmission could be cut this year.
However, ’’once transmission is interrupted they need at
least a period of three to six months to be sure that you
have interrupted transmission, and twelve months to be
certain,’’ which means success would not be confirmed until
next year, said Heymann.
With respect to the religious leaders, the WHO official said
they are ’’very important,’’ and that UNICEF is working
closely with them in Central Africa.
President Mamadou Tandja of Niger expressed concern because
the rumours in Nigeria about the safety of the vaccines
reached southern Niger, which borders Nigeria to the north.
Tandja, fearing a drop in vaccine coverage in Niger, visited
the southern part of the country accompanied by imams and
other local religious leaders, swiftly dispelling the
rumours, and ensuring that the immunisation was broadly
accepted by the population, said Heymann.