Situation reports on the polio outbreak in Syria

Efforts are underway to enhance poliovirus surveillance. A new environmental monitoring site was established in the Mayadene district of the province of Deir Ez-Zor, the center of the epidemic. As a result, the total number of environmental monitoring points in Syria will be 11.

Efforts are being made to strengthen vaccination programs to maintain high population immunity. 86 regular vaccination centers in Idle, Hama, Aleppo State were restored

In order to eradicate polio, it is necessary to stop all strains including poliovirus derived from vaccine. This short animation explains how these rare virus strains emerge and how to stop them.

Syria is hard to reach, more than 355,000 children under the age of 5 have been vaccinated against polio

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.

Syria 's bloody civil war became even more fatal when experts confirmed the occurrence of polio last month in the eastern part of the country. The outbreak in Syria for the first time in 14 years caused an emergency response from donor organizations trying to stop the virus by mass vaccination in the Middle East. But experts warn that these efforts can not prevent polio far beyond this area and compromise the worldwide campaign to drive viruses into extinction crisis.

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 that shows that a 6 year civil war hindered regular vaccination work there.

January 21 is the year Syria reported the last case of polio. This important milestone is due to the enormous efforts of all the people involved in the epidemic and the series of intensive vaccinations from the same month since the first case was confirmed in October 2013. Prior to this epidemic, Syria did not see the wild-type poliovirus outbreak since 1999. Due to the civil war, the public health of the country was seriously damaged and the level of immunity fell from 99% to 52%. When the conflict entered into Iraq, poliovirus destroyed 36 children in Syria and two in Iraq at the end of April 2014