Nigeria Partners WHO on Polio Campaign

The World Health Organization said the new cases indicate the wild polio virus has circulated undetected for five years in Borno state – a major setback after Nigeria was declared polio-free in October.

The Federal Ministry of Health of Nigeria, supported by WHO, UNICEF and partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, are rolling out an emergency immunization campaign, starting in the accessible parts of Borno state. Instead, on Thursday (August 11), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released statements noting that the Nigerian polio surveillance system had documented two children in the northern Borno state who have been paralyzed following poliovirus infection.

Worldwide organizations plan to support Nigerian health workers in using “a hit-and-run kind of strategy”, the WHO director for polio eradication, Dr. Michel Zaffran, told reporters in a conference call. These activities are also being strengthened in neighboring countries. “With our partners, we will not stop until we reach every child with polio vaccination”, said UNICEF Polio Eradication Director Reza Hossaini.

“The overriding priority now is to rapidly immunize all children around the affected area and ensure that no other children succumb to this bad disease”, Matshidiso Moeti, WHO regional director for Africa, said in the agency’s statement. “This is an important reminder that the world can not afford to be complacent as we are on the brink of polio eradication – we will only be done when the entire world has been certified polio-free”, he said. Low-level transmission of the poliovirus is not unexpected, particularly in areas where it is hard to reach children with the vaccine. Since then, a concerted effort by all levels of government, civil society, religious leaders and tens of thousands of dedicated health workers resulted in Nigeria successfully stopping polio.

Miringa said the two children, aged under 2, were among refugees arrived from areas newly freed from Boko Haram.

“That fluid movement of population complicates understanding of exactly where they’ve ended up”, John Vertefeuille, director of polio eradication for the CDC, told The New York Times. Only two other countries remain on the list – Afghanistan and Pakistan.