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Subregional training on the use of real-time PCR technique for diagnosis and detection of novel coronavirus
A sub regional training on the use of Real Time Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) technique for diagnosis and detection of novel coronavirus was held from 24 to 25 of June 2013. The training aimed at strengthening national capacity for novel coronavirus diagnosis, surveillance, preparedness and response and improving quality of laboratory based surveillance. The training focused on the following items:
- Novel coronavirus diagnosis using molecular methods
- Molecular diagnostic laboratory design and good laboratory practice
- Troubleshooting of novel coronavirus RT- PCR testing and interpretation of the results.
Training participants included members from Jordan, Libya, Lebanon, Qatar, Sudan and United Arab Emirates, Afghanistan, Iran, Morocco, Oman, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria and Tunisia.
Related links
Interim recommendations for laboratory testing of novel coronavirus (pdf 188kb)
First mass vaccination campaigns start since polio found in Iraq
Middle East polio outbreak response continues
Amman, 6 April 2014– Polio vaccination campaigns commenced in Syria, Iraq and Egypt today, aiming to reach more than 20 million children over the next five days.
For Iraq, this will be the first nationwide vaccination campaign since a case of polio was confirmed by the Ministry of Health on 30 March in a six-month-old boy from Rusafa, northern Baghdad.
“The recent detection of a polio case in Iraq after a 14-year absence is a reminder of the risk currently facing children throughout the region,” said Maria Calivis, UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa. “It is now even more imperative to boost routine immunisations to reach every child multiple times and do whatever we can to vaccinate children we could not reach in previous rounds. That’s the only way we will prevent this outbreak from spreading further.”
The current vaccination rounds are part of a comprehensive response to the announcement, in October 2013, that wild poliovirus of Pakistani origin had found its way to Syria. In recognition of the risk of further international spread, the governments of seven countries across the Middle East, with the assistance of local non-governmental organizations, civil society groups and UN agencies, are endeavouring to reach 22 million children multiple times with polio vaccine. Since October 2013, 25 polio vaccination campaigns were completed across the region, including five rounds in Syria and six in Iraq.
The numbers of children being vaccinated in each round is rising; however, the outbreak response is yet to reach especially vulnerable groups such as children who are on the move fleeing violence from Syria or those living in the midst of active conflict.
“Midway into the implementation of this outbreak response plan, we’re reaching the vast majority of children across the Middle East,” said Chris Maher, WHO Manager for Polio Eradication and Emergency Support. “In the second phase of the outbreak response we must work with local partners to reach the hardest-to-reach – those pockets of children who continue to miss out, especially in Syria’s besieged and conflict areas and in remote areas of Iraq. We won’t stop until we reach them.”
Health teams in Lebanon and Turkey will also join the campaign on 10 and 18 April.
Since the outbreak was announced UNICEF has delivered 14 million doses of polio vaccines to Syria.
NOTE TO EDITORS
As of end of March 2014, 27 children have been paralyzed by polio in Syria: 18 of these children are in the contested governorate of Deir Ez Zour, four are in Aleppo, two in Idlib, two in Al-Hassakeh and one in Hama. Prior to this outbreak, no polio cases have been recorded in Syria since 1999. The risk of spread to countries in the Region and beyond is considered high, and health authorities from 21 countries have declared a public health emergency. Further polio immunization campaigns will be repeated across the region. In Syria, they will be carried out at monthly intervals until at least May 2014.
On 30 March 2014, the Iraqi Ministry of Health declared a polio outbreak when one case of polio was detected in a child in the Al-Rusafa area in the capital Baghdad.
Genetically-related polioviruses, which originated in Pakistan, have also been detected in sewage samples in Egypt in December 2012, and in Israel and the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 2013.
Inside Syria over the past years since the conflict erupted in 2011, immunization activities have been significantly constrained by the violence and access restrictions. Cold chain equipment in a number of districts has been lost and mobile health teams have not been able to perform regular visits. This has led to missing out on vaccinating between 500 000-700 000 children in these areas.
For further information, please contact:
Juliette Touma, UNICEF Regional Office for the Middle East and North Africa in Amman,
Rana Sidani, WHO Regional Office in Cairo,
Sona Bari, WHO Geneva,
New polio vaccination round begun in Syria
3 February, Homs, Syria – The queue was already formed when three volunteer polio vaccinators arrived at ‘Mohammed El Durra’ school in Homs that was transformed last year into a shelter for over 500 displaced people.
“This is the third time my two children are getting immunized here,” says Ms Mirvat Baraq, as men and women bring children under the age of five to receive drops of oral polio vaccine (OPV). In less than two hours, 120 children residing in the shelter were immunized yesterday, the first day of February's vaccination round.
Supported by the World Health Organization and UNICEF, this is the fourth vaccination campaign across Syria since the outbreak of polio was confirmed last October. To date, 23 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported by the Government.
World Cancer Day 2014
2017 Award winners
World No Tobacco Day is a one-year campaign, beginning on 31 May. The Day aims to discourage tobacco users from consuming tobacco and to encourage governments, communities, groups and individuals to become aware of the problem and take appropriate action. Every year, we celebrate World No Tobacco Day under a different theme. On the Day, we present awards to key people and/or organizations that have made valuable contributions to tobacco control.
