New polio cases prompt enhanced immunisation campaign

Eleven confirmed cases of polio were reported in Sudan this year, prompting two United Nations agencies and an international non-governmental organisation to step up efforts to stem the spread of the crippling and sometimes fatal disease, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday. Most of the cases were genetically linked to the polio virus endemic in northern Nigeria, UNICEF said in a statement. UNICEF was working with with the UN World Health Organization (WHO) and Rotary International in the fight against the spread of polio, it added. Sudan had been polio-free since April 2001, but cross-border movement between Chad and Sudan is believed to have re-introduced the virus. The conflict in the western region of Darfur, where the first of the 11 cases was noticed, prevented the immunisation of all children under the age of five. "Armed conflict has contributed to the re-infection by the wild polio virus in Darfur that has now spread to the capital city, Khartoum," the WHO representative in Sudan, Guido Sabatinelli, said in the statement. Epidemiologists of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative warned in June that an outbreak of the disease in West Africa was a threat and could spread to other countries if not checked. UNICEF's representative, JoAnna van Gerpen, noted that measles vaccination campaigns in Darfur and other parts of Sudan had been successful in preventing massive outbreaks of that deadly disease. "We hope to do the same with polio," she said. "But the clock is ticking. If we don’t stop this right now, the potential for more cases is great." The first of a two-round of national immunisation days was concluded on 12 October. The second round is scheduled for 21-23 November, targeting six million children. The campaigns are part of a larger, regional immunisation effort in 23 countries across west and central Africa that aim to immunize more than 80 million children in a bid to urgently stop the spread of the polio virus that originated in northern Nigeria.