Suspected polio case in Eritrea tests negative

ASMARA, Feb 28 (AFP) — A suspected case of polio in Eritrea, found on the western border with Sudan has turned out to be negative, the World Health Organization (WHO) said Monday, easing fears that an outbreak of the disease in Africa has spread to the Horn of Africa nation.

“We had found a suspected case of polio in Eritrea on the Sudanese border but it turned out to be negative,” the WHO’s Eritrea country representative, Andrew Kosia, told AFP.

He said the last case of polio reported in Eritrea was several years ago but the health officials in neighboring Ethiopia, which also borders Sudan, reported two cases there on Saturday.

Ethiopia is the 14th country to be affected by the outbreak which officials say began when Islamic clerics in Nigeria launched a movement against polio vaccinations which they said were part of a plot to sterilize African girls.

Although the movement has now ended, the delay it caused in immunizations has sparked the outbreak which has now spread to Nigeria’s neighbors and even as far as Saudi Arabia, where two cases surfaced recently.

Nigeria alone accounts for 60 percent of the world’s polio cases, with 788 young people paralyzed by the disease last year, compared with 355 in 2003, the WHO said.

The WHO has launched a campaign targeting 22 African countries that aims to vaccinate 100 million children and eradicate the disease on the continent by the end of the year.

The poliomyelitis virus generally strikes children. It attacks the nervous system, causing paralysis and sometimes death due to respiratory problems.