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Polio returns after five-year absence

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New case of polio appears in Cote d'Ivoire
Polio has reappeared in Guinea and Mali five years after the crippling disease was eradicated in the two West African countries and health experts said on Tuesday there was still a very real threat of a major epidemic spreading across the African continent. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative said it had confirmed one case of polio in Guinea and two in Mali. It also said that three new cases had been recorded in Sudan's troubled Darfur region, doubling the number of infections detected there. "The ongoing polio outbreak which originated in northern Nigeria continues to affect new countries, underscoring the threat of a major epidemic across west and central Africa," the organisation said in a statement issued by its headquarters in Geneva. Polio, which can be easily prevented by immunising children at a young age, causes limb paralysis and frequently leaves its victims consigned to a wheelchair. The Eradication Initiative said on Tuesday it still needed another US$50 million to conduct synchronised mass immunisation campaigns in 22 African countries in October and November. But even if donors provide the cash, the persistence of conflict in several countries may make it difficult for the planned vaccination drive to achieve complete coverage. "Civil unrest in Cote d'Ivoire and the Darfur region of the Sudan will make it particularly challenging to reach every child this year," the polio group said. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, which links governments, private donors, relief agencies and the World Health Organisation (WHO) had hoped to wipe out polio by 2005. However, a 10-month ban on immunisation in Kano state in Northern Nigeria was a major setback which led to the reappearance of the disease in several other African countries. Last September, Kano state stopped immunising children, citing fears raised by Islamic fundamentalists that the polio vaccine had been deliberately contaminated as part of a Western Christian plot to reduce Nigeria's Muslim population by making children infertile and infecting them with HIV/AIDS and cancer. Kano state lifted the ban earlier this month after coming under heavy pressure from the Nigerian federal government and the international community. The authorities said they had eventually found a safe vaccine made in Indonesia. However, over the past year polio has spread throughout Nigeria. The country has reported 476 cases of the viral disease so far this year -- more than three quarters of the world total. This upsurge of polio among Nigeria's 126 million population led the disease to ripple back across the African continent.. The Eradication Initiative said that Guinea and Mali had brought to 12 the number of previously polio-free countries that had been reinfected since 2003.

This article was produced by IRIN News while it was part of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Please send queries on copyright or liability to the UN. For more information: https://shop.un.org/rights-permissions

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