A daily chronicle of ongoing events pertaining to infectious diseases
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
20 September 2011Last updated at 17:30 ET
Polio has spread to China for the
first time since 1999 after being imported from Pakistan, the World Health
Organization (WHO) has confirmed.
It said a strain of polio (WPV1) found in China was genetically linked with
the type now circulating in Pakistan. At least seven cases have now been confirmed in China's western Xinjiang
province, which borders Pakistan. The WHO warned there was a high risk of the crippling virus spreading further
during Muslim pilgrimages to Mecca. Polio (also called poliomyelitis) is highly infectious and affects the
nervous system, sometimes resulting in paralysis. It is transmitted through contaminated food, drinking water and
faeces. 'Right things done'On Tuesday, the WHO said the polio cases in Xinjiang had been detected in the
past two months. The Chinese authorities are now investigating the cases, and a mass
vaccination campaign has been launched in the region. "So far all the right things are being done," WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer
told Reuters news agency. Polio was last brought into China from India in 1999. China's last indigenous
case was in 1994. Pakistan is one of a handful of countries where polio remains endemic. WHO officials had been warning for some time that the virus was spreading
within the country to previously uninfected areas. The UN's children fund, Unicef, has said that eradicating polio from Pakistan
depends on delivering oral vaccines to each and every child, including the most
vulnerable and the hardest to reach.
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