WHO confirms polio outbreak in South Sudan

November 15, 2014 (JUBA) – The World Health Organisation (WHO) said it confirmed unrelated cases of polio in South Sudan and Madagascar, attributing it to low vaccination coverage.

Two cases of so-called type two vaccine-derived poliovirus were reportedly confirmed in some of the displaced people’s camps in the country.

“The crippling disease, which usually impacts young children, had been found in two patients in Unity State hit with acute flaccid paralysis (AFP),” WHO said on Friday.

Vaccine-derived polio infections are in rare cases caused by one type of polio vaccine, which contains small amounts of weakened but live polio virus.

Oral polio vaccine (OPV) replicates in the gut and can then be passed to others through faecal-contaminated water, thus imperilling unvaccinated children.

WHO has recommended that OPV be phased out worldwide and replaced by the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV).

The agency pointed out that as many as a third of children in restive Unity State remained under-vaccinated against polio, increasing the risk.

WHO said there was little risk of a wider spread, stressing that vaccination campaigns could easily be carried out in the internal displacement camps.

“However, the risk of international spread would increase if other areas are infected,” it said.

“Concerted outbreak response each time rapidly stopped those events,” WHO added, stressing though that the repeated emergence of the cases “underscores the risk of these events occurring in populations which are not fully immunised”.

South Sudan was first declared Polio free in 2009, although cases of the disease emerged later on.

(ST)