South Sudan campaigns for eradication of polio

June 12 2011 (TURALEI, Warrap State) – The government of the soon-to-be independent region of South Sudan has launched a synchronized mass immunization campaign to cover a total of 56,219 children aged below five years in response to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). The campaign kicked off on Saturday in the southern town of Turalei, Warrap State.

Acuil Majok Rehan, a health officer with state minister of health in the government of Warrap State told Sudan Tribune in Turalei that a team of vaccinators has been mobilized to go from door to door to deliver two drops of oral polio vaccine (OPV), to every child under five in areas considered at ‘highest risk’ of polio transmission.

He said all necessary logistics had been put in place and the immunization exercise would start next week and move across the whole state.

Rehan explained to that Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was a global initiative of health authorities in collaboration and partnership with the World Health Organization, Rotary International, the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF.

“Since the launch of the GPEI in 1988, polio has been reduced by more than 99 percent. In 1988, more than 350,000 children were paralyzed each year in more than 125 endemic countries. Only four countries remain endemic: Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan”, explained Rehan.

“With the outbreak in Angola (25 cases) having spilled over the border into neighboring provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (28 cases) – these two countries now represent the greatest threat to polio in Africa, having recorded 48 of Africa’s 58 cases in the past six months”, he commented.

Meanwhile, the Twic County Commissioner, Colonel Dominic Deng Kuoc Malek, has appealed to all residents to co-operate with health officials during the immunization campaign in order to wipe out polio.

Health official Rehan described Poliomyelitis (polio) as a highly infectious disease caused by a virus . It invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. The virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestines.

The medical practitioner explained that initial symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, and stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs.

One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs). Among those paralyzed, five to ten percent die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.

(ST)