WHO concerned over Polio outbreak in Syria

The UN’s health arm, the World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed yesterday that Syria is facing a polio outbreak after nearly 12 years of being free of the disease.

According to Oliver Rosenbauer, spokesman for the World Health Organization’s anti-polio division, tests conducted on 22 cases reported earlier have resulted in confirmations for 10 cases of wild polio virus type one.

There are speculations that carriers from the three major countries (Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan) that have polio today might have brought the virus into Syria. However, Rosenbauer believes the virus could have arrived from anywhere.

“Anybody can carry the virus, and that’s the big danger as well, that it can go very, very widely. This is the problem with this disease: unless you eradicate it from the remaining endemic areas you are going to run the risk of seeing polio re-emerge in polio-free ones,” shared Rosenbauer.

Health services in war-torn Syria have deteriorated and have further raised concerns over the situation. According to the WHO spokesperson, the identified virus is being tested to find out its source and results should in around next week.

Reportedly close to 95 percent of children in Syria had been vaccinated prior to the conflicts, which then led to around 500,000 children being neglected since 2011.

-Image courtesy: brecorder.com

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Posted by Ahmad Mehdi on Oct 30 2013. Filed under World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.