Confirmed case of wild polio virus in Jonglei State, South
Sudan: Onset of paralysis was reported in a 22 month-old
female child from Korchar village in Ethiopia on 2 March 2008.
On 6 March 2008, the child was seen in Akobo in Jonglei State
seeking medical care (see map). The case was reported by Akobo
AFP surveillance team and two adequate stool samples were
collected and sent to KEMRI laboratory for analysis. The primary
culture showed poliovirus P1. The isolates were sent to a South
African (SA) reference laboratory for Intratypic Differentiation
(ITD) testing.
On 10 April 2008, the SA laboratory confirmed the presence of
wild poliovirus P1, which is 96% close to poliovirus confirmed
in Sudan in 2004. Immediately on the receipt of this report, the
Ministry of Health in collaboration with WHO and other partners
held an emergency meeting and agreed the following response:
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It was agreed that synchronized campaign be conducted. The
planned round in South Sudan would begin on May 1, provided
confirmation is received from Ethiopian authorities that
they will conduct supplementary immunization activities (SIA)
at the same time. Should this not be possible, the first
Sudan SIA will take place as soon as possible after the
census and the second round, which hopefully will be after 2
weeks, will be synchronized with the Ethiopian campaign.
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It is expected that SIA in Ethiopia will cover all the
border area with South Sudan, covering approximately 52
wardas with the target population about 400,000 children
under the age of 5.
As
part of the global initiative to eradicate polio, the Federal
Ministry of Health of the Government of Sudan (FMoH) and the
Ministry of Health of the Government of Southern Sudan (MoH), in
collaboration with the World Health Organization (WHO) conducted 5
rounds of a national polio immunization campaign in 2007 and 1
sub-national immunization round. The campaign was conducted in
close partnership with the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF),
Rotary International and CDC Atlanta. The campaign’s coverage
results in 2007 showed that 8,910,641 children under the age of 5
years giving around 99% of the targeted population were
vaccinated/immunized across Sudan.