Johannesburg, Feb. 19 (BNA) The authorities in Malawi have detected a case of polio in the South African nation’s capital, marking another setback in the ongoing efforts to eradicate the highly contagious polio disease globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) said. The Associated Press reported. (AFP) reported.
The UN health agency said in a statement Friday that officials have identified wild poliovirus disease in a young child in Lilongwe, the first time the wild virus has been detected on the African continent in five years.
Although polio has spread to many African countries in recent years, those outbreaks have been linked to viruses already in vaccines, not to the wild virus. In very rare cases, the live virus in the oral polio vaccine can mutate into a version capable of causing epidemics, particularly in unvaccinated populations.
The World Health Organization said laboratory tests showed that the polio virus discovered in Malawi is linked to the strain that is circulating in Pakistan’s Sindh province, where the disease is still entrenched.
“As long as wild polio is present anywhere in the world, all countries remain at risk of importing the virus,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO chief in Africa.
Polio is mostly spread from person to person or through contaminated water. It attacks the nervous system and can sometimes paralyze people within hours. The disease mostly affects children under the age of five and has been largely eradicated in wealthy countries.
Health officials say polio is endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan, although several countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia have also reported cases in recent years.
The World Health Organization and its partners have fought for decades to eradicate polio – their initial deadline was to eliminate the disease by 2000, but since then they have not missed multiple goals to eradicate it. Many control efforts have been suspended during the pandemic, allowing the disease to spread further in what some officials have warned could represent a devastating setback to eradication plans.
AOQ