From Africa Recovery, Vol.15#4 (December 2001), Watch page

POLIO
Vaccination campaign marks progress toward eradication

Thanks to an aggressive, continent-wide campaign to eradicate polio, only 147 cases were recorded in Africa in 2000, Mr. Olusegun Babaniyi of the Africa regional office of the World Health Organization (WHO) told a meeting of polio specialists in Ethiopia in early December. This compares with 2,198 cases in 1995, when the first national immunization days were conducted in Africa. During 2001, some 86 million children were immunized against the disease in West and Central Africa, and only 46 cases had been recorded in the continent by November.

Those figures may be incomplete, however. Just a few days after the conference, five new suspected cases were identified in Ethiopia. Moreover, the number of recorded cases probably understates the incidence of the disease, given the limited surveillance capacity of most African health systems. Since polio can easily spread from one country to another, total eradication is essential, to prevent small pockets from again developing into a major scourge that paralyzes thousands of children each year.

Dr. Bruce Aylward, the global coordinator for the WHO's polio eradication initiative, told the meeting that the campaign is experiencing some difficulties due to insufficient political commitment by governments and inadequate financing. Of the $1 bn needed for the vaccination efforts in 2002, Mr. Aylward said, donors have so far pledged only some $600 mn.

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