Polio immunisation underway

Almost 200,000 children in Botswana are to be vaccinated against polio after the virus was reintroduced into the country from Nigeria. From 10 to 14 May, about 2,600 vaccinators, district and national health supervisors and volunteers will be involved in immunising children under the age of five against the disease. A second immunisation campaign will take place from 14 to 18 June. "UNICEF [UN Children's Fund] and the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Botswana are supporting the government of Botswana by supplying the oral polio vaccine, mobilising communities, training health workers and ensuring that the refrigeration 'cold chain' equipment is in place to safely transport the vaccine to the children," said a joint statement by the various organisations participating in the vaccination programme. Prior to the latest case, reported in February, polio had not been seen in Botswana since 1991. "This campaign is deemed critical to protect the country's children from further spread of the poliovirus," the statement stressed. "The government has given priority to the campaign, and has committed both human and financial resources - a total of US $1.2 million, of which US $710,000 is from the government," Botswana's minister of health, Lesego Motsumi, was quoted as saying. "I look forward to the day when no child in Botswana will be at risk from the life-long physical disability and mental anguish associated with this terrible paralytic disease." Since its last polio case had been recorded in 1991, Botswana stopped conducting mass polio immunisation campaigns in early 2000. However, a child tested positive in February this year with a strain genetically traced to northern Nigeria. "Botswana is the ninth previously polio-free country in Africa to become reinfected in the past 18 months, due to an ongoing outbreak of polio originating in northern Nigeria," the statement noted. The campaign in Botswana is part of the ongoing Global Polio Eradication Initiative launched in 1988 and spearheaded by the WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International, and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.