Concern over polio eradication efforts

The Japanese government’s 30 May donation of some US $30 million for polio eradication worldwide (of which some $2.2 million is earmarked for Sudan) had greatly bolstered the effort to purge the world of polio, UNICEF announced on 1 June. Reported polio cases numbered 2,857 in 20 countries last year, compared to an estimated 350,000 cases in 125 countries in 1988, it said. Executive Director Carol Bellamy expressed confidence that the 2005 target date for certifying the world polio-free was within reach, despite the disease continuing to threaten millions of children in Sudan, Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Nigeria and Pakistan. Polio, a highly infectious disease that mainly affects children under three, can cause total paralysis within hours. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, usually in the legs. Between 5 and 10 percent of people infected die as a result of the paralysis of their breathing muscles. While there is no cure for polio, vaccination can protect a child for life. UNICEF said on 1 June that it would use the Japanese contribution to provide oral polio vaccine and cold chain facilities, as well as to support logistics, training and social mobilisation activities for National Immunisation Days (NIDs), which require extensive grass-roots volunteer efforts to ensure that vaccines reach the homes of every child under five. In Sudan, humanitarian agencies are particularly concerned over the government’s refusal to carry out this year’s second and third rounds of NIDs through the capital of Northern Kordofan State, al-Ubayyid , to areas of the Nubah Mountains controlled by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A). Negotiations on access to the Nubah Mountains for the polio eradication campaign and mitigation of a growing crisis in the area had reached stalemate, humanitarian sources told IRIN. The absence of the Nubah Mountains region from the NIDs was undermining efforts to eradicate polio in Sudan, they said. Lack of access generally was also thwarting efforts to provide badly needed health, education, agriculture, water and sanitation, and income-generation programmes for vulnerable populations, they added.