The World Health Organization is optimistic that polio can be eradicated globally by the end of 2004, according to the World Bank press review Wednesday.
Vaccination campaigns resumed at the weekend in the Nigerian states of Kaduna and Kano, after the program had been suspended in 2003. Vaccinations were halted after local Muslim leaders claimed the vaccines were unsafe – and during the suspension the disease spread from Nigeria to other African nations.
Between now and the end of the year, the WHO aims to run national immunization projects in 22 African countries. Campaigns are also continuing in the other endemic region, South Asia, with the aim of eradicating the virus globally by the end of the year.
However the initiative faces a funding shortfall running to several hundred million dollars, and unless further more money is donated quickly, some of these campaigns may not take place.
This is a critical period for the polio eradication initiative, which commenced in 1988. Spectacular successes were achieved rapidly in the early years, but it is proving much more difficult to finish the job. However, if it is not finished, polio will re-emerge as a major global disease.
The resumption of immunization activities in Kano, the first round of which began 31 July and ended Tuesday, is one of several measures needed to stop polio transmission in Nigeria and to halt the international spread of the virus, a WHO press release said Tuesday, adding that 30 of 36 States in Nigeria are infected.
The WHO said high quality campaigns across the country and particularly in Kano and surrounding States during National Immunization Days from September to November would be central to broader efforts to prevent the further spread of polio. Key to success would be rebuilding community confidence in the safety of oral polio vaccine to ensure all children are reached, it added.
Meanwhile, the renewed drive to immunize Nigerian children living amid the worlds worst outbreak of polio has run into fierce opposition from parents and Islamic teachers, health workers. As the five-day campaign approached its end, officials in the northern city of Kano admitted they would not hit its target of vaccinating four million under-fives against the crippling disease.
Health workers found that much suspicion remains. Kano States information commissioner, Yusuf Garba, conceded that it had been ambitious to expect the people of Kano to immediately embrace vaccination after the exposure for almost a year to conflicting messages over its safety.
In another development, Ethiopia on Tuesday appealed for 15 million US dollar to meet its goal of eradicating polio from the Horn of Africa country.
– Ethiopia has received so far around 10 million out of the 25 million US dollar required to launch campaigns in the global effort to eradicate the crippling disease of polio by 2005, Health Minister Kebede Tadesse said.
By the end of a nation-wide polio campaign, 95 percent of the 14,2 million children under the age of five years in the country will have been immunized, added he.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
