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U.N. Health Agency: Polio Found in Angola

Posted on: Saturday, 2 July 2005, 12:00 CDT

GENEVA - A case of polio has been found in Angola, the first discovered in the country in four years, the U.N. health agency said Saturday.

"It's a polio case genetically linked to a virus circulating in India," Oliver Rosenbauer, spokesman for the World Health Organization's polio eradication initiative, told The Associated Press.

The disease, which spreads through dirty water, usually infects young children. It attacks the nervous system and causes paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformation and sometimes death.

Rosenbauer said the Angolan Ministry of Health contacted WHO last month after a 17-year-old girl developed paralysis in both legs.

An investigation has begun to determine how the girl, who lives in the Angolan capital of Luanda, contracted the disease, he said.

"The genetic analysis is conclusive," Rosenbauer said. "It is not linked to the cases in the West African outbreak that came from Nigeria and infected Yemen and Indonesia."

"There's a case investigation going on to see if the family or neighbors have traveled to India," he added.

A national immunization campaign already has being organized for the end of the month, because Angola felt it was at risk of importing the disease from its African neighbors, Rosenbauer said. A second round now was planned for August, he said.

A case of polio had not been diagnosed in Angola since September 2001, he said.

Source: Associated Press/AP Online

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