2004-6-29
This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
Health officials say the spread of polio from Nigeria into ten
other countries in Africa threatens years of progress to end the
disease.
Polio weakens the muscles and nerves. Severe cases can cause loss
of movement and sometimes death. Young children are most often the
victims. Polio is caused by a virus that is usually spread through
water that contains waste from an infected person.
In nineteen-ninety-eight, the World Health Organization and other
agencies launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. This
campaign has reduced new cases by ninety-nine percent. Polio is
still also found in Afghanistan, Egypt, India and Pakistan.
The goal has been to end polio by next year. But the W.H.O. says
five times as many children in west and central Africa have gotten
polio so far this year compared to the same period last year. Around
two-hundred children have been paralyzed in Nigeria since late last
year.
That was when the current situation began. Some Islamic leaders
in the state of Kano, in northern Nigeria, told the public that the
vaccine that prevents polio was unsafe. They said it was part of a
Western plot to harm them.
Concern spread, and polio vaccination efforts halted. Soon, polio
cases appeared in nearby countries that had been free of the
disease.
Before last year, Nigeria and Niger were the only countries south
of the Sahara with polio. Since then, the virus has been found in
Benin, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon and Central African
Republic. Chad, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Togo have also had new
infections. Scientists linked all these cases genetically to
Nigeria.
The same is true with the first case of polio in Sudan in more
than three years. Last month a child became paralyzed in the Darfur
area of western Sudan. Darfur already has a humanitarian crisis.
Arab fighters supported by the government have been destroying
villages of black African Muslims to crush a rebellion.
In Nigeria, Kano state officials announced in May that they would
restart polio vaccination efforts. Campaigns are being organized for
twenty-two African countries this October and November. That is the
season when polio cases are highest. The goal is to vaccinate more
than seventy-million children.
The VOA Special English Health Report was written by Cynthia
Kirk.