WHO NEWS
West Africa prepares for the final battle against polio
Ten West African countries will begin a massive, synchronized polio immunization campaign on 23 February 2004 aimed at vaccinating 63 million children in the region in just a few days. The campaign comes just one month after Health Ministers gathered for an emergency meeting at WHO in Geneva calling for commitment to end polio transmission in 2004.
Political, religious and traditional leaders from Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon (due to begin vaccination on 20 February), Central African Republic, Chad (due to join the campaign in March), Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire and Togo will come together to launch the campaign and tens of thousands of vaccinators will go house-to-house over three days to administer the vaccine directly to every child.
"After eight years of incredible collaboration and investment, Africa is standing on the verge of a well- deserved triumph in public health," said Dr Ebrahim Samba, WHO Regional Director for the African Region.
However, hopes of a quick end to polio in Africa have been overshadowed by the recent polio outbreak in Nigeria. Until mid-2003, Nigeria was part of Africa's polio success story, with only a few northern states remaining polio-endemic and the country's capital, Lagos Africa's most densely populated city polio-free for over two years. However, suspension of immunization campaigns in the northern state of Kano fuelled by unfounded rumours about the safety of polio vaccine led to an outbreak of the virus which then spread to the neighbouring polio-free countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Ghana and Togo.
"The disease is now threatening to make a comeback, and the whole continent is on the brink of re-infection unless these campaigns stop the further spread of the virus," said Samba.
"Before this new wave of cases, Africa had made the most rapid progress of any continent to secure a polio-free future for its children," said Rima Salah, UNICEF's Regional Director for West and Central Africa. "It would be an unspeakable tragedy to allow the virus to slip back now. National and community leaders must take a stand to stop the spread of the disease and ensure a victory over polio for the entire continent."
The campaign to "Kick Polio Out of Africa," launched by Nelson Mandela and other African leaders, has cut the number of children with paralysis caused by polio down from 205 cases per day in 1996 to just 388 a year in 2003.
Since its launch in 1988, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, spearheaded by WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF has seen the number of polio-endemic countries drop from 125 to just six Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Despite the resurgence of polio in West Africa which has put millions of children at risk, partners in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative remain hopeful that if the upcoming campaigns reach every child, polio transmission in Africa can still be stopped in 2004.
"Africa has proved it can stop polio now its time to finish the job," said Samba. 