Fears of Africa polio epidemic
(CNN) -- The polio outbreak that originated in northern Nigeria continues to infect new countries and threatens to become an epidemic across west and central Africa, health officials say.
Guinea and Mali have been reinfected and three new cases have been identified in the Darfur region of the Sudan, epidemiologists from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative said Tuesday in a written statement.
The confirmation of one case in Guinea (date of paralysis: 5 June) and two cases in Mali (dates of paralysis: 15 May and 5 July) came two weeks after polio immunization campaigns resumed in the northern Nigerian state of Kano "and reaffirms the need to urgently boost population immunity levels throughout the region," the statement said.
The cases raise to 12 the number of countries that had been declared free of polio to be reinfected since January 2003.
Guinea and Mali are outside a ring of countries that conducted immunization campaigns in February and March in an attempt to stop the spread of polio from northern Nigeria and Niger.
The new cases were reported as campaigns were gearing up to conduct a series of mass polio campaigns in 22 countries, including Nigeria and Niger.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative said the campaigns are $100 million short of what is needed.
Similar campaigns in 2000 and 2001 stopped polio transmission in most of these countries, but unrest in Côte d'Ivoire and the Darfur region of the Sudan will likely complicate this year's efforts, the statement said.
The Polio Eradication Initiative is spearheaded by the World Health Organization, Rotary International, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and UNICEF. Poliovirus is currently endemic in six countries, down from more than 125 when the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched in 1988.
The six remaining polio-endemic countries are: Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Niger, Afghanistan and Egypt.
As of Tuesday, 602 cases have been reported this year around the world, the statement said. The cases occurred in: Nigeria (476 cases), India (34), Pakistan (23), Niger (19), Afghanistan (3), and Egypt (1), among the endemic countries; and in the following importation countries: Chad (12), Côte d'Ivoire (9), Burkina Faso (6), Benin (6), the Sudan (5), the Central African Republic (3), Mali (2), Guinea (1), Cameroon (1), and Botswana (1).
