AP Features, May 25th, 2007
Health authorities are working to contain a polio outbreak in Myanmar that has afflicted three toddlers, the latest case confirmed this week, the World Health Organization said Friday.
All three cases _ affecting children between 15 and 23 months old _ were reported in the Maungdaw District on the border with Bangladesh, prompting authorities to launch a cross-border vaccination campaign.
"We have three cases confirmed in Myanmar near the Bangladeshi border," Oliver Rosenbauer, a spokesman for the WHO's Polio Eradication Campaign, told The Associated Press. "The cases in Myanmar were an importation from Bangladesh. It's genetically linked to that."
The outbreak in Myanmar has prompted authorities to launch the first of three synchronized immunization campaigns early this month in Bangladesh and Myanmar that is expected to cover 2 million children under age 5, Rosenbauer said.
The second campaign will be launched in early June and the third campaign in July, he said.
"The challenge will be reaching every child," Rosenbauer said. "The thing we have going is that both countries have relative strong routine immunization services. We are not seeing explosive outbreaks as we saw in Indonesia."
Myanmar's first polio case since February 2000 was detected last June in a 19-month-old boy in central Myanmar. The latest outbreak has no connection to that case. Two other suspected cases in Myanmar have yet to be confirmed in lab tests, Rosenbauer said.
Polio resurfaced in Bangladesh last year after a nearly six-year absence, forcing the government to launch a new series of immunization campaigns in April 2006. About 22 million children age 5 and under were vaccinated on April 8. Another round of nationwide vaccinations was conducted March 2. Similar immunization days were also held last year.
Polio is spread when people _ mostly young children _ come into contact with the feces of those with the virus, often through water. The virus attacks the central nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy and deformation and, in some cases, death.
About 1,526 people were afflicted by polio worldwide in 2006, down from more than 350,000 before 1988, when WHO launched a global anti-polio campaign.
