Africa 'faces new polio threat'

[muriel_volestrangler]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/3594694.stm

Africa could be on the verge of a major polio outbreak, the World Health Organization has warned.

Mali and Guinea have reported their first cases of the disease in five years. Three cases have also been reported in the Darfur region of Sudan.

The WHO had previously predicted that polio could be eradicated by the end of this year.
...
However, Guinea and Mali were outside the ring of countries targeted by WHO and the United Nations Children's fund (UNICEF) in an immunisation campaign launched in February.

I don't quite understand how exactly the lack of immunisations in Nigeria affected countries outside the ring - unless there are a lot of carriers who don't actually suffer the symptoms (or a reservoir outside the human population - in which case the 'polio could be eradicated' prediction was wildly optimistic).

[jdj]

1. It looks like people can shed it for weeks after exposure.

but there aren't any "long-term" carriers. I googled on polio carriers, but I didn't post a link because they are all really good but nearly identical.

[noonwitch]

2. They need to get as many people vaccinated as possible

I know that's obvious, but it should be easy to do. It's a lot cheaper for relief agencies than treating an epidemic.

Maybe there's not enough coordination between the agencies that provide relief in Africa, so one group has no knowledge of what the other is doing? There's UNICEF, church groups, the Red Cross, etc. They need some kind of conference with representatives from the governments involved, the various agencies and drug companies to address this in a manner that will reach the most people. Then they can figure who is performing which services in which areas and go from there.