Added on September 30, 2005 Major immunization campaign in Africa will target 34 millionBy Vukoni Lupa-Lasaga - Rotary International News 20 September 2005 The Global Polio Eradication Initiative has announced a plan to carry out a series of massive immunizations across eastern Africa between September and October to stop the spread of polio back into countries that have been rid of the disease. Targeting more than 34 million children in eight countries, the rapid immunization program was prompted by the confirmation of a case of polio in a 17-month-old baby in Somalia in late July. The country was on track to being certified polio-free after three years of reporting no new cases. Although reduced to anarchy by infighting warlords since 1991, Somalia presented an extraordinary polio eradication success story because the poliovirus was eliminated there without the administrative resources and oversight of a central government. But the absence of a central authority may have made a polio comeback more likely. "In a country like Somalia, access makes it much more challenging," Oliver Rosenbauer, a World Health Organization spokesman, told the Associated Press. "Insecurity, population movements, low vaccination coverage - all that increases the risk." Bruce Aylward, coordinator of WHO's global polio eradication program, told the news agency, "This series of campaigns in the Horn of Africa are going to be even more urgent than originally expected." The organizations spearheading the Global Polio Eradication Initiative explained in a 13 September press release that the accelerated immunization plan was finalized amid growing concern that outbreaks in neighboring Ethiopia and Yemen, from across the Red Sea, could spread to Somalia. According to the release, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other donors, including the European Union, are the major contributors of funding for the forthcoming immunizations. "The polio eradication initiative has shown the world that even in the poorest countries, widespread and debilitating disease can be defeated," said Patty Stonesifer, the Gates Foundation's cochair and president. "Today, as a resurgence of polio threatens to roll back the amazing progress of the past 20 years, it is more important than ever that governments and donors support the final push to eradicate polio." Rotary International provides ongoing support for polio immunization activities in Eastern Africa and Yemen. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, and Sudan, as well as Yemen, will be covered in the campaigns.
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