Governors Newsletter Rotary D1260 February 2006

ALL-TIME-LOW RESIDUE OF POLIO:

FOUR ENDEMIC COUNTRIES LEFT

Since 1986 RI has been at the forefront of eradicating polio in the world, as part of The Global Polio Eradication Initiative. It is the largest ever humanitarian programme of Rotary International. This is an update of the success.

Between 1988 and 2004, global eradication efforts reduced the number of polio cases from 350,000 annually to a low of 1,189 cases. In 2005 the number of cases rose again to 1,831 (as of 17 January 2006). At the peak the epidemic, originating in northern Nigeria, infected 21 previously polio-free countries between 2003 and 2005.

Four To Go!

The number of countries with indigenous polio has dropped to an all-time low: four. Polio eradication efforts are now in a new phase involving the use of next-generation monovalent vaccines targeted at the two surviving strains of virus.

In 2006, monovalent vaccines - aimed at individual virus strains - will be the primary platform for eradication in all remaining polio-affected areas, enabling the eradication drive to focus on poliovi-rus types 1 and 3.

This new phase has been announced alongside confirmation that indigenous poliovirus has not circulated in Egypt and Niger for over 12 months. This is the first time in three years that the number of polio-endemic countries has fallen, leaving Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Afghanistan - the only four countries that have never stopped indigenous polio transmission.

Gone From Egypt

The last wild poliovirus reported in Egypt was found in an environmental sample on 13 January 2005. “Polio has been endemic in our country for all of recorded history,” said Egyptian Minister of Health, Dr. Hatem Mostafa El-Gabaly. “The best tools of our age finally defeated this enemy who has been with us from pharaonic times.”

Gone From Niger

Egypt’s crowded cities challenged polio eradication, there highly efficient transmission presented unique problems. But in Niger a sparse population, some of it nomadic, is scattered over a vast country sharing a heavily-travelled border with Nigeria, the largest reservoir of poliovirus in the world.

Multiple immunisation campaigns in Niger were painstakingly planned so as to ensure that all children were being vaccinated, even in the remotest and border areas.

In 2005, the nine polio cases reported in Niger were all the result of importations, crossing over this border.

Success in Niger and Egypt is the result of intense efforts in 2004-05 to halt Africa’s polio epidemic and fast-track the introduction of monovalent polio vaccines into selected areas.

Still Work To Do

The number of cases of polio in India and

Pakistan in the last quarter of 2005 also fell by more than half compared with the previous year, due to more effective immunisation strategies and the use of monovalent vaccine.

“To fully exploit these new tools, government commitment in Nigeria must remain high at all levels to ensure that all children are vaccinated,” said Jonathan Majiyagbe, Past President of RI, speaking from Kano.

Ninety per cent of polio cases in Nigeria are concentrated in just eight of the country’s 37 states.

In 2006, in addition to mass immunisation with monovalent vaccines in the four endemic countries, large-scale campaigns with these vaccines will need to take place in eight countries - including Somalia, Indonesia and Yemen, in order to stop recently imported polioviruses.

The Polio Virus

Polio is caused by poliovirus type -1, -2, or -3. Type-2 poliovirus was eliminated in 1999. Monovalent oral polio vaccines (OPV) targeted at poliovirus types 1 or 3 - appear to work faster than traditional trivalent OPV to build immunity against these specific polio types. Used for the first time in the eradication initiative during 2005, monovalent OPV appears to have stopped transmission in Egypt and parts of India.

										District 1260 Governor’s Newsletter
										February 2006
										Issue No. 7