Uganda to launch anti-polio drive after outbreak feared in Sudan

KAMPALA, Jan 18 (AFP) — Uganda will next month launch a nationwide drive to vaccinate nearly three million children against polio in a bid to prevent a feared outbreak in Sudan from spreading, the health ministry said.

A Sudanese Red Crescent employee vaccinates a boy against polio. (AFP).

The inoculation program is to kick off in early February starting with northern Ugandan districts that border Sudan’s south, where an urgent UN vaccination campaign is now underway, spokesman Paul Kaggwa told AFP.

Uganda has not recorded a case of polio since 1997, but about 2.8 million Ugandan children are considered at risk of contracting the disease as they have not yet completed their course of vaccinations, the ministry said.

“This puts Uganda at a high risk of importing the polio virus from the polio-infected countries like Sudan, Ghana, Togo, Cameroon, Benin, Central African Republic and Botswana,” it said.

The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) and children’s agency UNICEF began the vaccination campaign in Sudan last week due to fears of an outbreak there after a leap in polio cases from none to 112 over a nine-month period in 2004.

The bulk of the Sudan operation was completed between January 10 and 12 but but vaccinations were extended until Monday in parts of the troubled western region of Darfur and the campaign in the south will run until Thursday.