HEALTH: Last Round in Polio Fight

By Gustavo Capdevila Reprint | | Print |

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 17 2004 (IPS) - International health campaigns have pushed poliomyelitis to the threshold of eradication in four of the six countries where the disease is still endemic – India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Egypt – but in the other two – Nigeria and Niger – this year has seen some serious setbacks.

The four will be able to halt poliovirus transmission by the end of this year, says David Heymann, head of the polio eradication division at the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"They’ll meet that milestone if they continue their activities at the same intensity and same quality. We believe and they believe that they can interrupt transmission," he said.

Progress made by the global initiative to eradicate polio was assessed Monday during the opening day of the World Health Assembly, which meets here through Saturday, involving health ministers from the 192 WHO member states.

The massive campaign to eradicate the disease was launched in 1988, when the poliovirus was endemic in 125 countries. In the four countries that are on the verge of eliminating transmission, this year just 22 cases were recorded.

Meanwhile, the campaign has run into setbacks in western and central Africa, where an explosive outbreak caused paralysis of more than 500 children, said WHO director-general Lee Jong-Wook, in his opening address to the World Health Assembly.

Nigeria, with a population of 120 million, had 119 cases for 2004 as of May 12, five times the total of the previous year, and 70 percent more than the cases recorded in the rest of the world over that period.

Nigeria’s health minister, Eyitayo Lambo, said his government had reached an agreement with the authorities of Kano state, in the north, to renew the vaccination efforts that were interrupted in August 2003 as the result of mistaken claims that the immunisation caused infertility in girls.

The other 35 states in Nigeria are already participating in the immunisation campaign, said Heymann.

Neighbouring Niger, with 11 million inhabitants, will also fail to meet the goal of halting transmission of the virus by the end of this year, because eradication programmes are lagging behind schedule, says the WHO.

As of May 12, there were a dozen cases recorded in four of the African country’s eight regions.

The new campaign for Africa calls for massive, synchronised immunisations in 21 countries by the beginning of 2005 at the latest.

The original aim to eradicate polio worldwide in 2005 remains in place, said Heymann. After a three-year monitoring period, the WHO issues certification to individual countries that transmission of the virus has been halted.

WHO chief Lee said by 2005 an estimated five million children will have been saved from paralysis, children who can walk thanks to actions taken to put an end to polio.

International health campaigns have produced positive results, like the three million people with tuberculosis who are cured each year through DOTS (direct observation treatment strategy), and the 600,000 cases of blindness prevented through programmes that fight onchocerciasis (river blindness).

But disease, suffering and death remain overwhelming worldwide, Lee told the health ministers.

Around 2.8 billion people live on less than two dollars a day, 480 million live in life-threatening zones of armed conflict, 1.2 billion have a difficult time finding potable water, 40 million men, women and children are living with HIV/AIDS, and more than 500,000 women die each year in childbirth, said the WHO director.

Other figures indicate that 1.3 billion people smoke and are exposing themselves to illness and premature death, while 1.2 million people die each year in traffic accidents.

The WHO authorities expressed their concern about the growing divide between the rich and the poor when it comes to health services.

Lee noted that one of the major inequalities is in the area of research and development of medications and medical treatments.

Every year, more than 70 billion dollars are spent on this sector, coming from both public and private sources. But less than 10 percent goes towards research on 90 percent of the world’s health problems, which overwhelmingly affect the poor.