- The World Health Organisation says a new polio outbreak in Sudan is linked to an ongoing vaccine-sparked epidemic in Chad — a week after the UN health agency declared the African continent free of the wild polio virus.
- WHO said two children in Sudan — one from South Darfur state and the other from Gedarif state, close to the border with Ethiopia and Eritrea — were paralysed in March and April.
- Both had been recently vaccinated against polio.
- WHO said initial outbreak investigations show the cases are linked to an ongoing vaccine-derived outbreak in Chad that was first detected last year and is now spreading in Chad and Cameroon.
- WHO said it had found 11 additional vaccine-derived polio cases in Sudan and that the virus had also been identified in environmental samples. There are typically many more unreported cases for every confirmed polio patient.
- The highly infectious disease can spread quickly in contaminated water and most often strikes children under 5.
- In rare instances, the live polio virus in the oral vaccine can mutate into a form capable of sparking new outbreaks.
- Recently, WHO and partners declared that the African continent was free of the wild polio virus, calling it an incredible and emotional day.
- WHO warned that the risk of further spread of the vaccine-derived polio across central Africa and the Horn of Africa was high,” noting the large-scale population movements in the region.
- More than a dozen African countries are currently battling outbreaks of polio caused by the virus, including Angola, Congo, Nigeria and Zambia.
- Health officials had initially aimed to wipe out polio by 2000, a deadline repeatedly pushed back and missed. Wild polio remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan; both countries also are struggling to contain outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio.
