Niger Republic records fresh polio outbreak – WHO
Polio
By Cecilia Ologunagba
Abuja, April 25, 2020 (NAN) The World Health Organisation (WHO) Regional Office for Africa, Brazzaville, Congo says Republic of Niger has reported new polio outbreak.
The UN health agency disclosed this in a statement posted on its website.
“Niger has reported a new polio outbreak that has affected two children in Niamey and Tillaberi region.
“Last December, the West African country along with Kenya and Mozambique reported ending polio outbreaks that had lasted 24 months.
“However, this new circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus transmission, that paralysed a child on February 15, is not linked to the outbreak that was closed last year.’’
The statement quoted, Dr Pascal Mkanda, Coordinator of Polio Eradication Programme in the African Region, as saying “Niger stopped the previous polio outbreaks by mounting high quality mass vaccination campaigns in 2019.
“Unfortunately, that will not be possible now as we have suspended the polio mass vaccination campaigns due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic responses that requires global standards for social distancing and hand washing hygiene practices.
“The poliovirus will inevitably continue to circulate and may paralyse more children as no high-quality immunization campaigns can be conducted in a timely manner.’’
According to WHO, Niger now joins the list of countries experiencing vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreaks in Africa, ramping up the total to 15 countries.
The other countries include Nigeria, Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Togo and Zambia.
“In these countries, weak routine vaccination coverage, vaccine refusal, difficult access to some locations and low-quality vaccination campaigns have made immunization of all children difficult.
“Vaccine-derived polioviruses are rare, but these viruses affect unimmunised and under-immunised populations living in areas with inadequate sanitation and low levels of polio immunisation.
“When children are immunised with the oral polio vaccine, the attenuated vaccine virus replicates in their intestines for a short time to build up the needed immunity and is then excreted in the faeces into the environment where it can mutate.
“If polio immunisation coverage remains low in a community and sanitation remains inadequate, the mutated viruses will be transmitted to susceptible populations, leading to emergence of vaccine-derived polioviruses,” WHO stated.
The agency said as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to spread in the African Region, most countries had enforced travel restrictions and suspended health activities that do not comply with physical distancing guidelines following WHO’s recommendations.
It said mass immunisation activities across the region had been postponed until further notice.
“However, the polio eradication programme in the African Region strives to sustain essential disease surveillance functions as well as planning for a rapid scale up in immunisation activities once the COVID-19 situation permits.’’
The statement also quoted Dr Modjirom Ndoutabe, Coordinator of the WHO-led polio outbreaks Rapid Response Team for the African Region, as saying: “ We are investigating the outbreak.
“Following the outbreak in Niger, we are currently investigating to understand what happened and carrying out a risk assessment to know the magnitude of the problem.
“We are also working with WHO country colleagues, local authorities and partners to prepare a team to be deployed once COVID-19 is over,”
Niger’s last wild polio case was in 2012 and the Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC), the independent commission designated to certify the eradication of wild poliovirus in the African Region accepted the national documentation of wild poliovirus-free status in 2016.
No wild poliovirus has been detected anywhere in Africa since 2016.
This stands in stark contrast to 1996, a year when wild poliovirus paralysed more than 75,000 children across every country on the continent.
The ARCC was expected to certify the region free of wild poliovirus in June 2020. (NAN)
CIA/KTO/SH
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Edited by Kamal Tayo Oropo/Sadiya Hamza