WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION WORKING TOWARDS A POLIO-FREE WORLD
Press Release
H/2892
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION WORKING TOWARDS A POLIO-FREE WORLD
19960109 GENEVA, 5 January (WHO) -- Some 300 million -- nearly half of the world's children in their first five years of life -- received supplementary immunization against poliomyelitis in 51 countries worldwide in 1995. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that an additional $500 million is needed to globally eradicate the disease by the year 2000.Such special vaccination campaigns, known as national immunization days, are organized to control the disease in high risk populations. The designated days constitute an important element of polio eradication strategies developed by the WHO. Other elements include maintaining high routine immunization coverage with oral polio vaccines, improving surveillance systems to detect and investigate all possible polio cases, and carrying out active and coherent communication support activities.
Rigorously implemented, these strategies have already led to the elimination of the disease in the Americas. The last case of wild polio virus was found in Peru in 1991.
Poliomyelitis is an infectious viral disease which attacks the central nervous system causing permanent paralysis of the muscles and even death. Its eradications means stopping the circulation of the naturally occurring, wild polio virus, which is highly infectious and does not recognize national frontiers. Modern means of transport may help spread the virus over long distances in a short time.
The WHO experts attest that polio will only be erased through concerted efforts by all nations. Such efforts are led by an international anti-polio coalition that includes the WHO, United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), Rotary International, United States Centers for Diseases Control and Prevention, non-governmental organizations and supporting governments such as those of Australia, Canada, Finland, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom and the United States.
Since 1988, when WHO member States collectively undertook to eradicate the disease, this combined international effort has already reduced the number of polio cases reported worldwide by 80 per cent. However, up to 100,000 estimated new cases of polio still occur each year in 67 polio endemic countries, primarily in Asia and Africa.
- 2 - Press Release H/2892 9 January 1996
The year 1995 saw the implementation of some of the most daring and spectacular polio eradication projects ever. Almost 83 million children under four years of age were immunized in China during the country's national immunization day last month.
In India, 82 million children were vaccinated on 9 December. In order to achieve the maximum coverage, including the population of more than 650,000 villages, around 500,000 vaccination posts were set up throughout the country. This project, one of the most ambitious in the recent public health history of the country, involved some 2 million national health workers who administered two drops of the oral vaccine to children, irrespective of their previous immunization record. The vaccination will be repeated on 20 January and then two more times in 1996 and 1997.
Around 18 million children were immunized in Bangladesh. (Bangladesh, India and Pakistan together account for two thirds of all polio cases reported annually worldwide.) Nearly 19 million children were immunized in Indonesia, and 6 million in Thailand.
During a WHO operation covering 18 contiguous countries in the Middle East, Caucasus and Central Asia republics, 56 million children were immunized. During this three-month campaign, immunization truces were declared in Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Iran mobilized 500,000 members of the Islamic Youth Organization to carry out vaccinations. The Russian Federation will join that operation in 1996 and will conduct a national immunization day to vaccinate around 7 million children.
Almost 10 million children were immunized in the Philippines. The same number of children was covered in Africa.
In some countries, immunization of children was carried out despite having their health infrastructures almost totally destroyed by war. In Sri Lanka, heavy fighting was stopped for eight hours to permit vaccination of 1.6 million infants.
Last year saw not only successful vaccination campaigns; as if to remind of its continuous presence, the wild polio virus struck in a number of countries. The most important were polio outbreaks in Zaire (400 cases in the city of Mbuji-Mae) and in Russia (140 cases in Chechnya and Ingushetia). In both cases, the outbreaks occurred as a result of considerable deterioration of the health systems, including immunization services.
In 1996, international efforts to eradicate polio will continue. Twenty- five African countries are now planning immunization campaigns to cover some 80 million children this year within the framework of a special WHO project called "Six Steps to a Polio-Free Africa".
- 3 - Press Release H/2892 9 January 1996
An additional $500 million is needed to eradicate the disease by the turn of the century. It will be the second disease after smallpox to disappear from the globe. Financial savings of polio eradication are expected to exceed $1.5 billion a year. "The eradication of polio is within our grasp. We owe it to future generations not to let it slip away", said the WHO Director-General, Dr. Hitoshi Nakajima.
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