Margibi County – Liberia’s quest to become a polio-free nation continued last weekend with A four-day campaign in Margibi County, the latest in a series of stops aimed at eradicating the menace from the post-war nation.

Poliomyelitis, polio for short, is a highly infectious viral disease, which mainly affects young children.

The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (e.g. contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and can cause paralysis.

Initial symptoms of polio include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck, and pain in the limbs.

In a small proportion of cases, the disease causes paralysis, which is often permanent. There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented by immunization.

Liberia, a member of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative  (GPEI) and Polio End Game Initiative, experienced its last case of Polio virus in 2010 in District #1 Grand Bassa.

Since then, health authorities and the international community have been making a concerted effort to curb the importation of WPV(Wild poliovirus) in Liberia.

The exercise in Margibi on the weekend was part of Liberia’s effort to join other countries in the West African Sub Region in a campaign from Sept 30 – Oct 3, 2016 to conduct synchronized Polio on in the National Immunization Days drive targeting children below the age of 0-59 months.

The drive centered in the areas of Duazohn, Silver Beach and other communities.

Since 2010, nearly one million Liberian children have been immunized against polio disease.

Authorities are targeting at least 945,000 children under five across the country.

There are currently more than 2,000 vaccinators spread out across the country to various homes, business centers, market places, playgrounds to eradicate the disease from Liberia.

Although Liberia was among many countries that were certificated in 2008 as being polio-free, the disease caused by a virus that spreads from person to person, resurfaced in 2009.

The polio vaccine is one of five routine vaccines that are given to children at health centers. The vaccines are given to children in order to protect them against TB, polio, pneumonia, measles and whooping cough.

To date, UNICEF has delivered 1.7 billion doses of vaccine and supported the training of tens of thousands of front-line workers in communities around the world.

A major social mobilization effort has been deployed to convince communities of the need to have their children vaccinated and to explain the measures being taken to minimize any risk of infection.

Community members, including traditional and religious leaders, women’s groups and local NGOs are playing a key role in promoting the campaign.

The Ebola outbreak affected all aspects of the health system, including vaccinations. Measles vaccinations, for example, dropped by 45 per cent between August and December 2014 compared with the same period in 2013, according to government figures.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease and one of the leading causes of death among young children globally. Polio, also a highly infectious viral disease, can lead to paralysis and sometimes death, with children under the age of five the most vulnerable.

Both diseases are easily preventable as vaccines are effective and inexpensive.

Kano, Nigeria – Two children have been diagnosed with the polio virus in Nigeria, after two years without any cases. Confirmation of the wild poliovirus is a major setback for the country’s efforts to eradicate the disease that leaves children severely paralyzed.

The two cases were detected in Borno state, in the northeast corner of Nigeria which borders Chad, Niger, and Cameroon where the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram
is active. Authorities say the tenuous security situation has made it difficult to access many parts of the region with immunization services, denying as many as a half-million children.

Blood samples from the infected children were sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where they were analyzed and confirmed. As an immediate priority, Nigerian health authorities say they are collaborating with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other partners of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative to respond urgently and prevent more children from being paralyzed.

These steps include conducting large-scale immunization campaigns and strengthening surveillance systems that help catch the virus early.

The mass vaccination campaign will target more than five million children in Borno and the neighboring countries of the Lake Chad basin, according to WHO.

The disappointment was palpable throughout Nigeria and among the array of NGOs working in the north to eradicate the virus when the news confirming the cases broke.

The country had made significant strides against the debilitating childhood disease. It had gone two years without a case of wild polio virus and was poised to be declared polio-free in 2017. 

Unlike Ebola which requires a 42-day period, for the WHO to declare a country free of polio it has to go three years without a new case. Nigeria was less than six months away from that historic milestone.  

Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that usually affects children and vaccinations are the only weapons against it. The virus is spread by poor sanitation and contaminated water. It mainly affects children under five years old.

Report by Wynfred Russell, wnrussell@hotmail.com