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[SANAA, 17 April 2007] - Yemen’s Ministry of Health and Population in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Monday began a three-day sub-national polio immunisation drive in eight provinces. The campaign is targeting 1.3 million children who are under five years of age. About 22,000 health workers and volunteers are participating, moving from house to house in the provinces of Sana'a, Taiz, al-Baidha, Mareb, al-Jawf, Saada and Shabwa, in addition to the capital city, Sana’a. “According to our analysis, there is an immunisation gap in these provinces. We decided, in coordination with the ministry of health, to close the gap,” Dr Mohammed Osama Mere, a technical adviser for WHO's Expanded Programme on Immunisation, said. Mere added that this campaign was important to ensure the Yemeni community is protected from the spread across the Red Sea of the polio virus from African countries, where it is still prevalent. The WHO supports the campaign by providing half of its resources, Mere said. In addition, WHO assisted the Ministry of Health in training health workers and designing micro-plans for the campaign. Yemen suffered a polio outbreak in 2005, when 478 polio cases were registered. That particular epidemic was first discovered in Nigeria when a religious group refused to be vaccinated against polio and then the virus spread to neighbouring countries Chad and Sudan before reaching Yemen. The Ministry of Health discovered a new case in February 2006. But since then, no more cases were registered, said Mere, and now Yemen is a polio-free country. “We have - in collaboration with the Ministry of Health - a network of surveillance for suspected polio cases. We search through this network, with the help of trained health workers, at all levels to look for these cases, to investigate, collect samples and send them for verification in a referral laboratory in Cairo or Amman," he said. In 2006, a mop-up campaign targeted more than two million children under five. Polio is a highly contagious, incurable viral infection of the nervous system which can cause crippling paralysis or even death within hours of infection. Further information
pdf: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=71642