Africa’s largest polio vaccination drive since 2020 targets 21 million children

Africa’s largest polio vaccination drive since 2020 targets 21 million children

Subject :Science and technology

Section: Health

Context:

• Africa’s largest polio vaccination campaign since 2020 kicks off today in three West and Central African countries viz. Cameroon, Chad and Niger. It will be extended to the Central African Republic next week.

Details:

• Type-2 Poliovirus is detected in these countries.
• No case of poliovirus is detected in Cameroon, but it has joined the vaccination campaign to avoid any future outbreak.
• The initiative is supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), through the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), and comprises synchronized vaccinations and joint plans in border communities to halt polio transmission.
• Synchronizing the campaign will ensure that a large cohort of children across the four countries receives the vaccine at the same time to enhance polio immunity in a broad geographic area.

Efforts made by these countries:

• All four countries have made huge efforts to bolster polio detection,curb the spread of the virus and protect children from the risk of infection and lifelong paralysis.
  • Despite all being certified free of indigenous wild poliovirus (the naturally circulating strain), the ongoing circulating variant poliovirus type 2, the most prevalent form of polio, persists.
• The Lake Chad region, which includes three of the four target countries, is grappling with one of the world’s most protracted incidents of armed violence.
• It is also home to one of the highest proportions of so-called “zero dose” children globally, who are either unvaccinated or under-vaccinated.
• Governments have continued to improve the quality of immunization activities, bolstered by the broad implementation of supplementary immunization campaigns.
• Door-to-door implementation, and with the help of WHO, health workers are now administering the vaccines at home.
• The use of Geographic Information Systems tools, including Open Data Kit, is also accelerating the response to alerts of potential polio cases, helping curb the spread of the virus.
• International support:
  • WHO, Rotary International, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have also joined the initiative.

What is Polio Virus?

• Poliomyelitis, also known as polio, is an infection caused by a virus (poliovirus). It is a serious, highly contagious disease that can affect a person’s nervous system.
• There are three types of wild poliovirus:
  • WPV 1: still exists but efforts are going on to eradicate it.
  • WPV 2: eradicated.
  • WPV 3: eradicated.
• Polio typically affects children aged 5 years or younger. It can result in muscle weakness, permanent disability, and even death.
• One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, 5–10% die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.
• There is no cure for polio, but there are safe, effective vaccines that, given multiple times, protect a child for life.

As an unintended consequence, type 2 vaccine virus variants (circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses) that mimic wild viruses’ contagiousness and neurovirulence, have been emerging and spreading.