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| April 26, 2007 | Thursday | Rabi-us-Sani 08, 1428 |
Country moving towards zero polio incidence
RAWALPINDI, April 25: Although Pakistan, with 33.5 million children under the age of five, is yet to be declared polio free, the country’s drive to eradicate this crippling disease is in full swing, as only seven cases have been reported in the first three months and 25 days of 2007, against 40 last year.
The independent advisory group for the global eradication efforts has concluded that the current year presents the best opportunity for Pakistan to stop the spread of polio virus for good.
The latest Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) indicators, contained in the WHO weekly bulletin on Poliomyelitis Surveillance Reporting, said Pakistan’s last polio case was detected on March 27, 2007 in the Nasirabad district.
Although Polio cases in the country have been steadily declining for some years, in 2003 the number of cases increased to 103, from 90 in the previous year.
But the following year, in 2004, cases dropped to 53 and to 28 in 2005, due to effective campaigns. The highest number of polio cases during 2006 was in the NWFP, mainly due to the movement of Afghan refugees across its border with Pakistan.
Cross-border polio vaccination campaigns in Afghanistan and Pakistan —two of the four remaining countries that have yet to stop polio entirely— plan to vaccinate over 40 million children, will conclude on Friday.
The two countries have a long border with regular travelling across and is considered a single block for the transmission for the polio virus. The only two other countries where polio has never entirely been eliminated are India and Nigeria, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Since the introduction of new tools in 2006, including the more potent vaccines and new tactics in both countries, they appear to have stopped the bulk of their indigenous spread of polio, and were now dealing with external factors.
This requires careful international coordination and synchronisation of activities at borders, as well as concrete help to improve safety. In both countries, vaccinators aim to reach all children under the age of five.
In the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region (EMRO), Pakistan and Somalia are the last two countries where polio has not been completely eradicated. However, rapid and significant progress towards the eradication of poliomyelitis was continuing in all countries of the region.
The number of cases shows a declining trend reaching a minimum in 2002, in the light of a well-developed and efficiently performing surveillance system. Polio virus transmission had been interrupted in 15 countries of the region for over three years.
The global drive to eradicate polio, which has reduced the number of polio cases worldwide by over 99 per cent, is aiming to reach all children under five years with the oral polio vaccine a number of times. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative was created in 1988 by the World Health Assembly, and is spearheaded by the WHO, Unicef and other donors.
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