The coronavirus pandemic has forced the World Health Organization (WHO) to delay deliveries of polio vaccinations to some 12 million children across Africa, The Guardian reported Wednesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 29th April, 2020) The coronavirus pandemic has forced the World Health Organization (WHO) to delay deliveries of polio vaccinations to some 12 million children across Africa, The Guardian reported Wednesday.
Poliovirus prevention campaigns across Africa have been delayed at least until the second half of 2020 because the method of administering the vaccines, droplets in the mouth, poses a risk of spreading COVID-19, head of polio eradication at WHO Africa, Pascal Mkanda, said, as cited by the UK publication.
Mkanda was quoted as saying that it was a difficult but correct decision "because we need to tackle COVID-19 and because the process of administering vaccinations can actually increase the spread of the virus."
According to Mkanda, this decision will inevitably lead to an increase in polio cases across the continent, undoing positive strides made to fully eradicate the disease in recent years.
"We took the difficult decision to suspend these plans and considered it would have a significant impact on preventing the spread of new outbreaks.... New outbreaks of polio will appear because we will not be able to administer the vaccines in time," he said.
The Guardian reported that 15 countries on the continent are experiencing "vaccine-derived poliovirus outbreak" among populations who have yet to be reached by previous vaccination campaigns.
The polio disease, most often caused by the poliomyelitis virus, is a debilitating condition that destroys muscle tissue and is most dangerous to children under the age of five.
It has a case fatality rate of about 10 percent, killing patients when it destroys muscles linked to breathing.
A scourge against children of African and Asian populations in the past, successful vaccination campaigns have led scientists and leaders to believe the polio can be the latest disease to be eradicated from humanity after small pox.
