Polio Returns to Guinea, Mali, New Cases in Darfur

Polio has spread to two more African countries where it had been eradicated, Guinea and Mali, highlighting the risk of a major outbreak across west and central Africa, international campaigners said on Tuesday.

Polio has spread to two more African countries where it had been eradicated, Guinea and Mali, highlighting the risk of a major outbreak across west and central Africa, international campaigners said on Tuesday.One case was confirmed in Guinea and two in Mali, the first in both countries since 1999, while three new cases were also detected in the Darfur region of west Sudan, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.”The ongoing polio outbreak, which originated in northern Nigeria, continues to infect new countries, underscoring the threat of a major epidemic,” the group, which includes the World Health Organization (WHO), said in a statement.An international drive to wipe out the paralyzing disease, which afflicts mainly children under five, has been hit by opposition to immunization in parts of northern Nigeria, where Muslim elders feared the vaccine could spread the killer HIV virus and cause infertility.Late last month, the Nigerian state of Kano agreed to lift its ban on vaccines, imposed in September 2003, after religious leaders received assurances that they were safe.But during the 10-month halt, the polio virus spread rapidly inside Africa’s most populous country, with the infection rate tripling to 346 cases so far in 2004.It also crossed borders, with the latest cases in Guinea and Mali taking to 12 the number of countries to report the return of the disease since the start of 2003.The new cases come as 22 countries in Africa, the only region in which polio is still spreading, prepare for a coordinated immunization campaign in October and November.But a senior WHO official warned on Tuesday that the plan was threatened by lack of money, with around $50 million still needed if 74 million children were to be vaccinated as intended by the end of the year.A further $50 million would be required to repeat the process again in 2005, the target date set by the U.N. health agency for halting the transmission of polio worldwide.”The greatest risk at the moment is the financing shortage,” said Bruce Aylward, WHO global coordinator for the campaign.Only six countries — India, Pakistan, Egypt, Niger, Nigeria and Afghanistan — are considered polio-endemic, down from 125 when the global initiative was launched in 1988. At the time there were an estimated 350,000 annual cases. (Source: Rueters, August 2004)