Ethiopia vaccinates 11.5 mln children against polio

ADDIS ABABA (Reuters) – Ethiopia launched a drive to
vaccinate 11.5 million children under the age of five against
polio on Friday, following the discovery of 24 cases of the
paralysing disease imported from Sudan, a WHO official said.

The Horn of Africa country had been free from polio for
almost four years until it found the new cases in 2005, said
Atnafu Getachew, an immunization officer at the World Health
Organization in Addis Ababa.

“Investigations showed that 24 children under the ages of
five have been suffering from the crippling effects of the wild
polio virus that spread from neighbouring Sudan,” he told
Reuters.

Up to 105,000 volunteers and health workers would go from
door to door across sub-Saharan Africa’s second most populous
country during the four-day campaign, he said. The WHO had
provided $5.2 million for anti-polio vaccines.

But Atnafu also said Ethiopia, an impoverished country of
more than 70 million people, may be forced to launch another
campaign because of possible spread from neighbouring Somalia
where he said an outbreak has been reported.

Earlier this month, the WHO declared two more states —
Egypt and Niger — free of endemic polio, bringing the goal of
eradicating the disease worldwide a step nearer.

This left a record low of just four countries — Nigeria,
India, Pakistan and Afghanistan — where the disease, which can
paralyze a child within hours, is still endemic.

In another eight countries, including Ethiopia, the disease
has been imported from the outside.

In most cases, the source of the virus was Nigeria where
vaccination campaigns resumed in late 2004 after being
interrupted because religious elders said they spread AIDS and
sterility.

The WHO launched its campaign in 1988 when polio was
present in 125 countries and 350,000 children caught it each
year.

The number of new cases has since fallen to 1,856 in 2005,
with Nigeria accounting for nearly half, or 749.