In a briefing to reporters in Geneva, WHO Communications Officer Oliver Rosenbauer said that out of 22 reported cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP), 10 had been confirmed as being the result of Wild Polio Virus Type 1. The remaining 12 cases are still being investigated.

The cases were initially reported on 17 October in the Deir Al Zour province in the north-east region of Syria. Due to the protracted conflict, which has displaced millions, Syria had already been considered at high-risk for vaccine-preventable diseases. However, the country has not experienced a case of polio since 1999.

Polio, whose virus enters the body through the mouth and multiplies in the intestine attacking the nervous system, is highly infectious and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.

Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, and stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis and among those paralyzed, five to 10 per cent die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.

Rosenbauer said the next step was to look at the isolated viruses and identify where they came from, to shed light on the source of the outbreak.

The 22 people who have been tested are children, mostly toddlers less than two years old. All of them appeared to be under or unimmunized, with some having received one dose of a vaccine and others not receiving any vaccination at all. Rosenbauer said the children came down with fever and were then paralysed.

WHO spokesperson Glenn Thomas added that health authorities in Syria and neighbouring countries had already begun the planning and implementation of the comprehensive outbreak response.

Meanwhile, a UN spokesperson in New York reported yesterday that Anthony Lake, the Executive Director of UNICEF, ended a two-day visit to Damascus, in which he said that the Syrian Government and agency had agreed on the importance of reaching hundreds of thousands of children in some of the worst-affected parts of the war-torn country with life saving vaccines, including those against polio.

Lake said that immunizing children is in its very nature non-political and has no connection to any military considerations. Lake also said that, with cases of polio now emerging in Syria for the first time since 1999, vaccinating children against polio is an urgent and critical priority for Syria and for the whole world.

“The combined immunization campaign constitutes an important step forward for Chad in its agenda to accelerate child survival and development,” said Bruno Maes, the Representative in Chad for the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which is supporting the effort along with the World Health Organization (WHO).

“Vitamin A supplementation offers the child a better chance of survival and lower risks of being infected by serious infectious diseases. Meanwhile, children who are de-wormed have a better nutritional status, grow faster and develop better learning skills,” Maes added.

More than 9,600 additional community workers have been mobilized across the country to ensure that all targeted children are reached, including nomadic children, who are often difficult to reach, according to a UNICEF press release.

The agency noted that Chad has made tremendous progress towards the eradication of polio, with only 5 cases diagnosed in 2012 compared to132 cases in 2011.

“The campaign will help consolidate gains made in polio eradication in Chad, where no cases have been reported since June 2012,” Maes said.

He cautioned, however, that fundamental concerns remain in the country. There are still a significant number of unvaccinated or missed children during campaigns. “This is a concern in 8 of the 19 regions where the proportion of unvaccinated children has increased during supplementary immunization activities,” he said.

The Government is committed to overcoming those challenges, UNICEF says, noting that Chad has joined the UNICEF global initiative known as ‘Commitment to child survival: a promise renewed’, which aims to reduce the infant mortality rate in countries to below 20 per 1,000 births by 2035.

Laboratory results have confirmed that the last case of the wild poliovirus was a 14 month old child from Uige Province in the African country’s north-west in July 2011, following years of concerted efforts by the Government and its partners to halt the outbreak, which had spread to neighbouring countries, according to a joint press release from the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Government of Angola.

“This success is the result of the improvement in the quality of polio campaigns round after round,” said the acting WHO Representative in Angola, Jean-Marie Yameogo, who also credited the “high commitment” of Government officials at all levels and the engagement of civil society.

Other factors included improved surveillance of the disease, improved routine immunization and the coordination of efforts in neighbouring countries, along with greater access of populations to safe water and sanitation, according to the joint release.

Primarily funded by the Government, the country’s massive vaccination campaigns deployed thousands of health workers and volunteers door to door and at crossing points, main streets, markets and water points, reaching 95 per cent of children under the age of five.

The decline of new cases from 33 in 2010 to five in 2011, with none as yet in 2012, is significant, UNICEF’s Representative for Angola, Koenrad Vanormelingen, noted, while also warning against complacency.

“These investments demonstrate the importance of building strong primary health care for all the country’s children,” he said. “We have a duty to protect and ensure that all children are born and developed in a healthy polio-free environment, which means we can not stop until every child is fully vaccinated.”

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative – spearheaded by the WHO, UNICEF and a host of national, multilateral and private sector partners – has overseen a 99 per cent reduction of polio cases since its launch in 1988, with only three countries still endemic – Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Also WHO reported that no new cases of Ebola haemorrhagic fever have been reported over the past four days in Uganda, as a team of experts from the health agency and its partners continues to support the Government’s response to an outbreak in the western part of the country.

As of 8 August, a total of 23 probable and confirmed cases had been recorded, including 16 deaths, WHO stated in an update on the situation.

All people who came into contact with probable and confirmed cases of Ebola are being followed-up for a period of 21 days, the agency added, with 190 having completed 21 days of close monitoring, while 185 are still being closely monitored for any possible sign of illness.

Uganda has previously experienced outbreaks of Ebola, which can in severe cases lead to internal bleeding and is transmitted by direct contact with bodily fluids of infected persons or animals, but the most recent outbreak was declared over in early 2008.