A major campaign to vaccinate more than 111 million children under the age of five against polio in 20 African countries in just four days kicks off on Friday this week. Among the countries earmarked for the campaign is the Democratic Republic of Congo, which due to its proximity to Rwanda should be a matter of concern to Rwandans, in the highly ambitious project to be launched by the World Health Organisation.It also targets Chad, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the Central African Republic (CAR), Niger, Cameroon, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cape Verde, Côte d’Ivoire, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Togo. Together, minus Nigeria, the 19 countries account for nearly 53.3 million children who will be targeted in the campaign. Out of the 20 targeted countries, Nigeria is the only polio endemic country, and throughout its immunisation period – which will start a week later for logistical reasons – it aims to provide 57.7 million children with two drops of oral vaccine each.Due to the presence of the disease in Nigeria, the risk of importation of the polio virus remains high in West Africa, with Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Mali and Niger having seen the resurgence of the virus last year.“The upcoming campaign in West and Central Africa will aim to cover all children, immunised or not, in order to boost their protection levels and deprive the virus of the fertile seedbed on which it depends for survival,” said WHO Regional Director for Africa, Luis Sambo. “This exercise should bring us closer to reaching our goal of interrupting wild polio virus transmission in our region in 2012.”The campaign is intended to serve as a massive boost in efforts to eradicate the disease, and will involve national health ministries and UN agencies, as well as tens of thousands of volunteers who will go from door-to-door immunising children. In a press release received by The New Times yesterday, the WHO and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) described the campaign as entering a “decisive phase.” “Either we succeed in eradicating polio today or this initiative will falter tomorrow and polio will explode,” said UNICEF’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa, David Gressly. “We will then see millions of children being paralysed by this disease.” To reduce the risk of transmission of the polio virus, the oral polio vaccine coverage must be sustained for a number of years. However, a WHO assessment conducted in February shows that there have been gaps in routine vaccination in most West African countries. The upcoming campaign aims to address these gaps and boost the population’s immunity levels. Since the 1988 launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative – spearheaded by national governments, WHO, UNICEF, Rotary International, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation – the incidence of polio has been reduced by more than 99 per cent. At the time, more than 350,000 children were paralysed every year in more than 125 countries.Last year, 650 cases were reported worldwide, and India – once regarded as the epicentre of polio – was declared to be free of the disease in January, reducing the number of polio-endemic countries to three: Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. The need to eradicate polio was among the highlights of the last Commonwealth Heads of State and Government meeting in Perth, Australia, several member states committing resources to tackle the disease.
