Six million vaccine doses shipped to Yemen
Six million doses of monovalent oral polio vaccine type 1 (mOPV1) have been shipped to Yemen as part of emergency measures to stop the ongoing polio outbreak in the country.
Six million doses of monovalent oral polio vaccine type 1 (mOPV1) have been shipped to Yemen as part of emergency measures to stop the ongoing polio outbreak in the country.
UNICEF has confirmed that the vaccine, which will be used in Yemen's nationwide immunisation campaign (due to take place at the end of May) to immunise all of children under the age of five years, will arrive early next week. Ten WHO experts are presently working with national authorities to finalise the plans for the campaign and train vaccinators and supervisors.
mOPV1 works faster than the trivalent oral polio vaccine to create immunity against type 1 poliovirus, the strain causing Yemen's outbreak, and health officials expect this vaccine to more rapidly stop the outbreak.
Confirmation of the mOPV1 availability came as Yemen reported a further 41 cases, rising from 22 in late April. Epidemiologists expect that the total number of cases will exceed 100 before the outbreak is stopped. Yemen had been polio-free since disease surveillance began in 1996.
Experience shows that sporadic polio outbreaks in previously polio-free countries, such as Yemen and Indonesia, can be stopped quickly, provided high-quality immunisation campaigns are implemented rapidly. While these events strain the financial resources of the global eradication effort, they do not threaten its ultimate success.
The real challenge to global eradication remains stopping polio transmission in the last remaining reservoirs of transmission, from where poliovirus has been exported, such as northern Nigeria, northern India and Pakistan. Epidemiological evidence demonstrates that polio's grip is rapidly slipping in all three of those key endemic countries, with India having reported only 14 cases to date this year and Pakistan only six, while Nigeria has largely driven polio out of its southern states, immunising a record number of children in the past round.
Global eradication efforts have reduced the number of polio cases from 350 000 annually in 1988 to 1267 cases in 2004. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is spearheaded by the WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and UNICEF.