The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed that countries in the Middle East have been reinfected with polio. Health officials are not preparing to launch a vaccination campaign for 20 million children.
Poliomyelitis (polio) is caused by a virus that enters the body through the mouth by mainly fecal-oral contamination. No cure has yet been introduced but it can be successfully prevented via vaccination which has effectively cut the polio cases by 99 percent since 1988. However, the crippling disease is back and reportedly infecting people in Syria, threatens to spread in Europe, and now targeting Middle East.
"The headline is the Middle East is reinfected," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, the Assistant Director-General for WHO's program for Polio, Emergencies and Country Collaboration. He told CNN that "probably thousands infected" because the polio virus could have paralyzed one out of 200 to one out of 1,000 of the people infected.
So far, 10 kids were paralyzed and about 650,000 children are already infected in Syria. Thus a response to curb the spread should cover the entire nation, a goal attainable based from the vaccination history in the country.
In 2012, several positive tests were found in samples in Middle East sewers in Israel, Egypt, and the West Bank and even in Gaza which is an area where polio was non-existent for almost 10 years.
The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that "Preliminary evidence indicates that the polio virus is of Pakistani origin and is similar to the strain detected in Egypt, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip," which are among the main targets for the vaccination campaign.
Further, Jordan's Zaatari refugees counting to over 18,000 kids were also given the vaccine just after a few days, which make the national objective of 3.5 million possible over a period of time.
Western Iraq has already started to have polio vaccinations and further coverage will soon reach Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey and the Kurdistan regions in the next few weeks.
