Polio suspected as death toll rises to seven

Preliminary test results pointed to an outbreak of polio, Namibian health officials said today as the death toll from a debilitating illness in three of the country's 13 regions rose to seven.

Dr Kalumbi Shangula, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health and Social Services, told journalists on Tuesday morning that results obtained from stool, urine and blood specimens by a laboratory in South Africa, accredited by the World Health Organisation (WHO), indicated an outbreak of the poliovirus 1 (PV1) Wild Type. The last polio outbreak in Namibia was reported in 1995.

The disease was initially confirmed in three informal settlements in Katutura, near Windhoek, the capital, but it has also been found south of the capital in the Karas Region and to the north in the Otjozondjupa Region. Shangula said all the cases were being treated in isolation at Katutura State Hospital and Windhoek Central Hospital.

"Out of the 11 specimens collected from 11 patients in Katutura and Windhoek State Hospital, five of them were confirmed cases of wild polio virus Type 1," said Shangula. One of the specimens was obtained from the first case, reported on 7 May in Aranos, a small town south of Windhoek. The infected person was still on ventilator support at the privately owned Roman Catholic Hospital in the city.

"The ministry is waiting for the confirmation report, which is expected towards the end of the week," said Shangula.

Five of the infected people died in hospital and two were reported dead on arrival. Shangula said the symptoms included back pain, headache, neck ache, fever, weakness of the lower limbs, paralysis, gastric pain, chest pain, diarrhoea and vomiting.

"A total of 38 cases were reported as of 6 May 2006," said Shangula. "Four patients were later discounted as suffering from other conditions and not from acute paralysis diseases." Most of the infected were aged between 24 and 29.

"The ministry shall embark on a mass public education and vaccination campaign. The National Health Emergency Preparedness and Management Committee [in the Ministry of Health] shall work out the modalities for these campaigns of vaccination, logistics and personnel," he explained.

A polio immunisation campaign, scheduled to kick off on 10 June, has been moved forward to this week.

Although WHO has intensified efforts to eradicate the disease, polio has resurfaced in Africa in recent years. In Southern Africa, it was reported in Angola and Madagascar last year. A 2003 polio outbreak in Nigeria spread to neighbouring countries and put 15 million children at risk. It took a massive immunisation campaign across five countries in west and central Africa to bring the outbreak under control.

A country can only be declared polio-free after an independent committee has certified that there have been no polio cases for three consecutive years.