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Angola and DR Congo experience polio outbreaks
New polio outbreaks have been reported in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo in areas where the disease had been eradicated.
polio vaccination
The World Health Organization (WHO) says it's concerned children in both countries could become paralysed for life. UN Radio's Yvette Morris reports from Geneva.
The outbreak which began in April 2007 in Angola has spread to re-infect previously polio-free areas in the country and across the border in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Pointing to a 99 per cent reduction in cases in Nigeria compared to the same period last year, no reported cases in West Africa since May or in the Horn of Africa for more than 12 months, WHO says this central African outbreak now poses the greatest threat to Africa's polio eradication efforts.
Oliver Rosenbauer is a WHO spokesman:
"All children across central Africa are really at risk from this outbreak and remember this is a dangerous disease for which there is no cure. Once you have this disease you are paralysed for life."
WHO attributes the outbreaks in Angola to ineffective immunization programmes in which as many as 25 per cent of children are missed regularly. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Agency says no vaccinations have been carried out in the east since last November.
In the meantime, WHO says travellers to Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo should be vaccinated against polio.
Yvette Morris, UN Radio Geneva.
Duration: 1'34
