U.N. says Angola polio controlled, vaccinates more
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Vaccination campaigns and public health education have bought a polio outbreak under control in Angola, the United Nations World Health Organisation says, warning awareness is still vital to prevent further cases.
Health officials had feared failure to stop transmission of the disease, which paralyses, deforms and kills children, could have led to it spreading not only within Angola but also to neighbouring countries such as the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Namibia and Zambia.
“We have had no more cases since the first two rounds of vaccinations - no cases since August,” WHO Angola spokesman Jose Caetano said. “We believe we have it under control.”
A new round of vaccinations would begin on Sept. 20, he said, aimed at ensuring there were no more cases beyond the seven already reported. Health experts believe the outbreak originated in northern India.
Only one in 200 people infected with the virus will show symptoms, allowing it to spread rapidly and undetected.
The WHO says controlling the disease once it has spread into a population is impossible, and wants it eradicated completely.
A worldwide vaccine campaign had reduced the number of global polio cases to only 7,000 by 2003, prompting hopes the world might see a repeat of the success of an earlier campaign that wiped out smallpox.
But rumours in northern Nigeria that the vaccine was unsafe lead to a suspension of the vaccine campaign there, followed shortly after by an outbreak that spread to Chad, the Central African Republic, Ghana, Sudan and even Yemen and Indonesia.
But Angola, still reeling from an outbreak of the Ebola-like Marburg virus that killed over 300 people earlier this year, is keen to stop the further spread of polio - although the country will need three years without a case to be declared polio free.
“The next round of vaccinations will run between September 20 and October 4,” Caetano said. “The campaign has bought the situation under control but we are still continuing it.”
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