Somalia launches emergency polio immunization campaign

[Rahima]

Somalia launches emergency polio immunization campaign

 

With polio continuing to spread in nearby Ethiopia and Yemen, campaign rushes to protect Somali children

 

 

 

17 JUNE 2005 | NAIROBI, KENYA -- On 17 June, Somalia will launch a nationwide polio immunization campaign, to urgently protect the country's children from life-long paralysis caused by the disease. The campaign comes as the World Health Organization (WHO) Office for the Eastern Mediterranean issued a stark warning that Somalia could become re-infected with polio from nearby Ethiopia and Yemen, the latest two of 16 previously polio-free countries re-infected due to an ongoing outbreak in west and central Africa. Somalia has been polio-free since October 2002.

 

“The outbreaks of polio in Ethiopia and Yemen, coupled with large population movements between Somalia and its neighbours have put Somali children at risk of polio,’’ said Dr David Heymann, Representative for Polio Eradication at WHO in Geneva, Switzerland. "The outbreaks in Ethiopia and Yemen have already paralyzed 230 children."

 

"It is crucial that all efforts are made to ensure that the poliovirus is not allowed to reverse the gains made so far in Somalia," agreed Dr Ibrahim Betelmal, WHO Representative for Somalia. In addition to Ethiopia and Yemen, Dr Betelmal highlighted the outbreak in Sudan, which over the past 12 months has left 152 children paralysed, as further evidence at the speed with which the disease can re-infect a country. "It is crucial to prevent this happening in Somalia," he explained.

 

The campaign is launched as an emergency preventive measure, and aims to rapidly boost children's immunity to polio. Health officials stressed the importance of ensuring every child is vaccinated during the activity, particularly as only an estimated one-quarter of all children are routinely immunized against polio in Somalia.

 

Supported by WHO and UNICEF, tens of thousands of volunteers, health workers, parents, as well as community, religious and traditional leaders will systematically go house-to-house and village-to-village across the country, to hand-deliver polio vaccine to every child under the age of five years. The activity will be held on 17-19 June in Puntland, on 18 -20 June in Somaliland, and from 24-26 June in the south and central areas of the country. To further maximise the immunological impact of the campaign, the recently-developed ‘monovalent oral polio vaccine type 1’ (mOPV1) will be used. This novel vaccine will more rapidly boost immunity among children, as it works faster than the commonly-used ‘trivalent oral polio vaccine.’

 

The immunization campaign follows similar activities already conducted in February and April. Organizers of the campaign have urged all parents, community, traditional and religious leaders to participate in the immunization activity, to ensure all children of Somalia can benefit from the protection offered by the polio vaccine, regardless of previous immunization status. Further polio immunization campaigns will be held in July, August and September, to ensure all children receive sufficient doses of the polio vaccine to be adequately protected from the disease.

 

Meanwhile, UNICEF Somalia Representative, Jesper Morch appealed for more support for the polio eradication effort. â€Because of the risk of the re-infection of Somalia and other polio-free countries, it is more urgent than ever to fill a US$50 million global funding gap by July.†Of this figure, nearly US$2 million is needed for Somalia - to enable continued immunization activities in the second half of the year. An additional US$200 million is required for 2006 activities. “Failure to urgently meet these funding needs will compromise immunization activities and threaten the polio eradication effort, not only in Somalia but worldwide.†said Mr Morch.

 

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is spearheaded by the WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF. Since 1988, the incidence of the disease has been reduced by 99 percent, from 350,000 cases per year to 456 cases in 2005. In 2005, the number of reported polio cases by country are (as at 7 June): Yemen (220 cases), Nigeria (144 cases), Sudan (25 cases), Indonesia (28 cases), India (18 cases), Ethiopia (10 cases), Pakistan (7 cases), Niger (1 case), Afghanistan (2 cases) and Cameroon (1 case).

 

Editors’ note

 

The 16 previously polio-free countries suffering importations of poliovirus as a result of the 2003-2005 outbreak in west and central Africa are: Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte d'Ivoire, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Indonesia, Mali, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Togo and Yemen.

[shyhem]

This indeed is good news.No child should suffer for the rest of their life for something we can easily prevent like polio.I hope they are not just talking the talk but walking the walk too.

[Cawralo]

That's good mashLah. I've seen a couple of somali kids (born during the war) @ work, who suffer from poolio. I wonder if kids were activly vaccinated against it b4 the war? Either way, good news...hope they'll use vaccin from recombinant technic, to save us from yet another tragedy.

[STOIC]

New York times(may 2, 2005) reported that Polio is now almost exclusivelly found in muslim countries.This is because scientist hypothesize that polio spread from Nigeria (through Hajj) to all over the muslim world. Nigeria (muslim part) refused polio vaccine due to a theory that Americans are lacing the vaccine with anti-fertlity agent that sterilizes children.Do you guys beleive that the Nigerian polio vaccine was contaminated?-i am still looking for a creditable source ever since i heard about the "theory".

 

***I am not spreading any "conspiracy theory" ,if you heard about Nigeria problem, care to share?***

[Baluug]

So Somalia claims they will launch an emergency campaign to protect their children from a permanently crippling disease.Masha Allah,that's great....Huh....Oh,they aren't talking about qabiilism?Polio?Oh well,for a moment there,I thought we were going to have our country back.

[Muhammad]

Originally posted by STOIC:

New York times(may 2, 2005) reported that Polio is now almost exclusivelly found in muslim countries.This is because scientist hypothesize that polio spread from Nigeria (through Hajj) to all over the muslim world. Nigeria (muslim part) refused polio vaccine due to a theory that Americans are lacing the vaccine with anti-fertlity agent that sterilizes children.Do you guys beleive that the Nigerian polio vaccine was contaminated?-i am still looking for a creditable source ever since i heard about the "theory".

 

***I am not spreading any "conspiracy theory"

,if you heard about Nigeria problem, care to share?***

yes i heard it too, i was watching a dacumentry on LinkTV i think, in Kanu, the problem spread when they learned one of the side-effects of the vaccine was fertlity loss. but I believe it has been aproved now.

 

lol they even developed a new version of soccer for those with polio, very cool to watch!

[Cawralo]

I dont think the nigerian vaccine was contaminated. I mean, tests were carried out by nigerian scientists to prove the safety of the vaccine. There were very low ammounts (if any) of hormones that were supposed to cause infertily...but on the other hand, weren't HIV the result of a bad polio vaccine?..to my understanding this is a hypothesis layed forward by some scientists. That's to me even worse than infertily. I'm more interested of knowing how the vaccine is manufactured, do they still use monkeys? And also, I was watching a peice about poloio vaccination in Indonesia..the kids were gives the vaccine oraly, which I always thought was "the old" way of vaccinating against polio..I mean, isn't there a (very small) risk of that actually causing polio?

 

Either way, having seen two small kids, suffering from this, it feels like suspicion is not enough to deny vaccinating the poor kids. Who knows, in 60 years or so, there might be news about how the africans were poissened..but without hard evidence..

[Rahima]

Either way, having seen two small kids, suffering from this, it feels like suspicion is not enough to deny vaccinating the poor kids. Who knows, in 60 years or so, there might be news about how the africans were poissened..but without hard evidence..

As I see the issue. If indeed side effects do arise (as they do with most vaccinations), we must weigh up the positives and the negatives then go with that which is more beneficial. Thus far, nothing is concrete and we must do everything within our capacity to fight polio and similar disorders which can be alleviated by simple precautionary measures.

[Endeavour]

----This is a wonderful news to hear. As we are all aware the number one killer disease in East africa is malaria. I would like to see more efforts and measures put in to prevent malaria. The polio immunation gives me hope that there will be more campaigns launched in the near future InshaAllah its about time we cared for our own-----

 

 

Cawralo--wrote---which I always thought was "the old" way of vaccinating against polio..I mean, isn't there a (very small) risk of that actually causing polio?---Interesting, Sis they normally inject the dead or semi dead virus to activate your immune response in order to provide a life-long protection(Usually) but the virus does not have the virulence to cause the disease.