Syria polio outbreak confirmed by WHO

DAMASCUS. The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed 10 cases of polio in war-torn Syria - the first outbreak in the country in 14 years.The UN body says a further 12 cases are still being investigated. Most of the 22 people who have been tested are babies and toddlers.Before Syria’s civil war began in 2011, some 95% of children were vaccinated against the disease.The UN now estimates 500,000 children have not been immunised.Polio has been largely eradicated in developed countries but remains endemic in Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.The BBC’s Imogen Foulkes in the Swiss city of Geneva says there has been speculation that foreign groups fighting in Syria may have imported it. The WHO said the suspected outbreak centres on the eastern province of Deir Ezzor.The highly contagious disease is most often spread by consuming food or liquid contaminated with faeces.“Of course this is a communicable disease, with population movements it can travel to other areas. So the risk is high for [its] spread across the region,” the Reuters news agency quotes WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer as saying in Geneva.“Immunisations have started in that area,” he said.There are more than 100,000 children, all under age five, now at risk of polio in Deir Ezzor province alone, which has been caught in fierce battles between Syrian government forces and opposition fighters.The city of Deir Ezzor remains partially controlled by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad, while the countryside is in the hands of the opposition.More than four million Syrians have been displaced internally by the conflict and generally live in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions.