By Doh James Sonkey
The Director of Polio Eradication at the World Health Organization, WHO, Dr Michel Zaffran based in Geneva, Switzerland and the Head of SANOFI Pasteur, David Loew based in Paris, France, have reassured that they will not withdraw support on the fight against polio in the world, despite almost total elimination of the virus in the world.
They jointly gave the assurance to media men in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Nairobi, Kenya and Karachi, Pakistan, during a virtual press conference organized last October 22, 2018 on the occasion of the World Polio Day, observed last October 24, 2018. They stressed that “We don’t have to relent our efforts for fear other polio cases resurface in the world.”
Moderated by Vertika Kanaujia, a broadcast journalist based in India and London, the virtual conference equally enabled journalists to get updated information on the fight against polio, as other key actors in the fight such as the WHO Coordinator for Polio Research, Policy and Containment, Dr Roland Sutter, UNICEF’s Technical Officer for Polio Eradication and Routine Immunization, Dr Ibrahima Kone etc equally participated.
Asked why the switch from oral to injection, experts explained that Oral vaccine is the drug that protects the vaccinated child. Noting with satisfaction that there are isolated cases of polio in few countries now, unlike in the 90s when many children were suffering from polio infection, they added that “For the moment, we will continue with the polio oral vaccine which can only be taken off when we must have completely eliminated polio in the world.”
It is worth noting that the last polio case was detected in Cameroon in July 2014 and handled by Public Health officials.
Quizzed to know if the continuous use of oral vaccine in a polio-free country like Cameroon will not lead to virus return, Dr Michel Zaffran while reassuring that WHO has taken measures to prevent that from happening in Cameroon or any other country, replied that “it can only happen if after a long time, children have not been given the attenuated oral vaccine.”
Latest information indicates that there has been a pattern of outbreaks of cVDPV cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo as this March 2018 report from the US Centers for Disease Control explains. There is a continuing outbreak in Somalia with a linked case in Kenya. In Papua New Guinea, a case of polio and two community contacts were reported in June. A suspected case of polio in Venezuela focused attention on risks in the Western hemisphere, although the WHO later reported that the paralysis “was not associated with wild or vaccine-derived poliovirus.”
It was explained that these cVDPV outbreaks arise where not enough children receive the oral polio vaccine in a given community, given that a child who has been immunized can excrete a weakened form of live polio virus and cause infections in other children.
The experts described the cVDPV outbreaks as worrying because they involve all three strains of poliovirus given that Type 2 has not been seen in the world since 1999 and was removed from the oral polio vaccine, in a carefully-coordinated global effort, last year.
They rejoiced that “the news is much better on world polio cases as there have only been 17 cases in 2018 in two endemic countries. 13 of the cases have been reported in Afghanistan while the number of cases in Pakistan is the same as we had seen by September 2017.
The virtual conference was organized by Sanofi Pasteur which produces most of the inactivated polio vaccine used in the world and which has been involved in polio vaccine research, development and deployment for over 40 years.