Indonesia steps up polio vaccinations

Indonesia stepped up polio vaccinations around several villages in West Java province on Friday as international concern grew over an outbreak of the virus that has crippled six infants.

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari told El Shinta radio station that the number of positive cases had risen to six, from five on Thursday. All were near the city of Sukabumi, about 100 km (62 miles) south of Jakarta.Health officials are studying up to 10 other possible cases.John Budd, a spokesman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said the agency was “extremely concerned” about the re-emergence of polio in the world’s most populous Muslim nation for the first time since 1995.He said UNICEF was helping the government with a two-day emergency vaccination response that began on Thursday and would also contribute $1.3 million to help with a major campaign at the end of May to immunise 5.2 million children.”We feel strongly that there has to be a recommitment to ensuring routine vaccinations that protect children against this in Indonesia are adhered to, and the government has responded very quickly to this,” Budd said.”You let your guard down for one second, even if it’s a pocket (of coverage), and sure enough something terrible will happen.”The World Health Organization (WHO) says the Indonesian cases are almost identical to a polio strain circulating in parts of Africa and that the disease may have reached the country from Africa via the Middle East.The two-day emergency campaign that ends on Friday is an extension of initial vaccinations at the affected villages and would cover 1,500 additional children.That would hopefully put a perimeter around the area, Budd said. But he added it was more likely the polio virus had made its way to the Sukabumi area via Jakarta.In Bojong Genteng village near Sukabumi, health workers were conducting a mass immunisation of around 500 children. At nearby Girijaya village, three children under the age of 2 appeared to be suffering total paralysis. Their parents stared sadly at their children.”She was only immunised after getting this. I am full of regret,” said Honeng, 30, whose two-year-old daughter Annisa was among the three. “I was just not aware there was any danger.”Villagers in Girijaya said 10 children had symptoms there. AUSTRALIAN CONCERNAustralia has also donated A$1 million ($769,000) to help stop the outbreak of polio, a virus that mainly strikes children under the age of five and can cause irreversible paralysis, deformation and sometimes death.Asked why Australia was concerned, Minister Supari said:”If the outbreak here is not controlled, eventually it will go to Australia. That’s why their aid was natural.”Budd said the campaign at the end of May would take one to two weeks, although Indonesian officials said it could be done within two days. It will cover western Java and Jakarta.Some 40,000 volunteers need to be trained up and the children registered before the mass campaign can begin.Supari said some children had not been immunised because there were beliefs they should not receive it. She did not elaborate, but immunisation is considered routine in Indonesia.The WHO’s campaign to halt transmission worldwide by the end of 2005 was dealt a severe blow in mid-2003 when Nigeria’s Kano state banned vaccines because Muslim elders said they were part of a Western plot to spread HIV and infertility.Indonesia is the 16th previously polio-free country to be reinfected in the past two years, including 13 in Africa, according to the Geneva-based WHO.There were 1,267 cases of polio worldwide in 2004, up from 784 the previous year, according to the UN health agency.(Source: Reuters Health, May 2005)