Polio outbreak in Syria poses vaccination dilemma for WHO

GENIBA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that the number of children receiving Syria's polio vaccination was too small. It constitutes a dilemma after the latest occurrence, leading to more cases in the future

Children who health workers inoculated with polio vaccine at Raqqa in eastern Syria on November 18, 2013 REUTERS / Nour Fourat

In 2014, the first case in Syria's polio, Deir al-Zor in was held in the same eastern province where two children in Muslim countries bordered with Iraq.

According to Oliver Rosenbauer of the World Health Organization, in the Mayadin area of ​​Deir al-Zor, an estimated 50% of children under 5 years of age may be vaccinated to prevent outbreaks and sow the next outbreak .

At the briefing he said that the vaccination rate needs to be nearly 80% to achieve the maximum results and to protect the population.

"Are you worried that a future epidemic by polio vaccines will actually occur? ... Of course this is a problem, so it is necessary to use this vaccine wisely and to determine the highest level cause There is report, "Rosenbauer said

A new case is a vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2, which can be found in an immunodeficiency community after mutation of oral polio vaccine.

"Vaccine-derived strains are often not as dangerous as wild poliovirus strains, they are less likely to occur and tend to be less geographically mobile, which is a silver lining and should be beneficial for operation. "He said

Syria is one of the last viruses in the world. The virus is still prevalent in Afghanistan and Pakistan

The current epidemic in Syria is caused by popular vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2. This is a very rare virus that occurs when polio immunity against the population is low. In Syria, conflict and anxiety jeopardized access to regional vaccination services. This led to the spread of a weak virus of oral polio vaccine between individuals who were not completely vaccinated and between long-mutated individuals to cause paralysis. Toxic form. The only way to stop the spread of vaccine-derived poliovirus is the same immune response as the outbreak of wild-type polio. Due to high population immunity, the virus can not survive, the epidemic is over.

Long-term infection of vaccine virus can only occur in children who have not been able to prevent polio well enough. It is not surprising that this development occurred in the war zone. Indeed, Syria broke out the wild polio from 2013 to 2014, and another sign shows that a 6 year civil war hinders regular vaccination work there.

The outbreak of polio in Syria is one of the most difficult and obvious occurrences of polio eradication. Polio paralyzed the children and greatly reduced the national health base and the health effects of the people of Syria. When society and order become unstable, the health system will collapse and people will be affected. Syria is no exception. Media coverage over the past few months has raised questions about the activities of Syria's World Health Organization, particularly in response to the outbreak of polio. The following table intends to answer some of these questions and recognizes the seriousness of the crisis and the challenges that are taking place in Syria.