One last try to eradicate polio
Efforts to eradicate polio from the world
in 2004 failed, but the Central African Republic (CAR), as well as 21
other African countries, launched a new, more coordinated campaign on
Thursday, which, officials say, must succeed.
"This is our last chance," Leodegal Bazira, the CAR representative
of the
UN World Health Organization (WHO), told IRIN at the national campaign
launch in Bossangoa, a provincial town 305 km northwest of the capital,
Bangui.
"I don't think the donors are willing to provide further funding if we
fail again," he added.
The cost of the new campaign in the CAR alone is US $1.2 million. It is
being carried out by the WHO, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the
Ministry of Public Health and Population in three rounds between now and
December.
The disease affects mostly children aged below five years, paralysing them
for life. Around 350,000 children worldwide were being infected by polio
each year before the first worldwide effort to eradicate it began in 1988.
By 2000, the number had dropped to 2,500, but unless the disease is
eradicated completely it could always return in epidemic proportions.
In the CAR, polio had reportedly been eradicated in 2000, but four years
later health workers detected 30 new cases.
"We believe the virus travelled to CAR via Chad from northern
Nigeria,"
Bazira said. "The eradication programme failed there because religious
leaders were misinforming parents saying that the vaccine was designed to
sterilise their daughters."
The virus also spread to Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire,
Ghana, Togo, Mali and Sudan.
Why CAR failed to eradicate polio again in 2004 remains an open question
for many. Problems with refrigeration, say some experts. The vaccine, a
liquid given on the tongue, spoils if it is not kept cold until it is
administered.
Another reason for failure to eradicate the disease may have been the
CAR's armed conflict, some health officials said. Thousands of Central
Africans have been displaced by fighting with many of them still
reportedly living in the forest. Unidentified armed groups continue to
attack villages and connecting roads.
A UN convoy of health officials responsible for the vaccination campaign
travelled from Bangui to Bossangoa and back, escorted by well-armed
government troops.
"Lack of security, poor communications and infrastructure are certainly
all obstacles," Dr Jean Moke Kipela, the WHO coordinator of the polio
campaign in CAR, told IRIN. "But the way we are overcoming many of these
problems this year is by better planning and by recruiting vaccinators
locally.
"That way the vaccinators know the families of the children, know the
children missing - so they can follow up," he said.
Some 2,000 vaccinators were deployed throughout the country on Thursday
with the aim of vaccinating some 700,000 children.
However, on Friday, the first day of vaccinations, there were still
problems in some of the villages. At the village of Ndjoh, 50 km south
from Bossangoa, the chief told residents not to allow their children to
take the vaccine because it would cause diarrhoea.
"He did the same thing last year," Kipela said. "We still have
two days to
convince him that the vaccine is safe, otherwise we will vaccinate the
children by force, as we did before."
In 2004, soldiers encircled the village, while vaccinators went from house
to house.
In Bangui on Saturday, the second day of the campaign, there were other
problems. The chief doctor at a health clinic in the neighbourhood of
Ouango, Dr Edith Sakho, said many of the children had gone fishing with
their parents and other parents were refusing to allow their children take
part.
At a meeting of the vaccinators on Saturday in Bangui, team leaders read
out the number of children who had been missed and the various reasons.
The group then discussed the reasons as well as strategies to ensure the
children got vaccinated by Sunday, the final day of the campaign.
"By Sunday evening, the number of children in Bangui known to have
missed
had dropped to 12. We extend the campaign and keep trying tomorrow but we
can never hope to get all of them," Kipela said.
He added, "We have to hope that the ones we miss had been vaccinated
previously or that they will be vaccinated in the next two rounds.
"I think we have a good chance of succeeding. From the data I have seen
it
is epidemiologically feasible that transmission of the polio virus in the
CAR can be stopped by the end of this year."
That is not the same as eradication though. "Only after three years of
careful surveillance will we know for sure that, this time, the disease
has gone for ever," Kipela said. - IRIN
More information:
[This Item may not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations.
Copyright (©) UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs 2005]
www.irinnews.org
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