Rolling back polio

New cases of polio in West Africa went down from 150 in 1999 to 20 last year, the World Health Organisation's regional representative, Mame Thierno Aby Sy, told IRIN on Tuesday. However 17 countries in West and Central Africa are still "at risk of the disease", he said. WHO was part of a panel of five international organisations, including UNICEF, that briefed media and donors on the progress of their joint polio-eradication campaign. When the two UN agencies, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rotary International and USAID launched the campaign in 1988, some 350,000 people were infected worldwide. Now there are 3,500 cases. The drop in West Africa is partly due to synchronized national immunisation days conducted in October and November 2000. Some 77 million children under five years were vaccinated, including 2.4 million who had not received the vaccine before. This reduced the prevalence rate by 80 percent, Sy said. In 1999, 66 million were vaccinated. The panel appealed to the international community and donors for financial aid, and urged regional governments to focus more attention on victims. It also called on local media to become active promoters of the campaign, which needs US $400 million for worldwide eradication.