A baby girl in Somalia has been diagnosed with polio, sparking fears of an epidemic in the lawless country and dealing a fresh blow to a global eradication drive, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said on Tuesday.
Urgent immunisation campaigns are being launched across the Horn of Africa, including Somalia, from this month to reach 34 million children in eight countries and try to halt the spread, the WHO said in a statement.
Some 1.5 million Somali children under age five are deemed vulnerable after outbreaks this year in neighbouring Yemen (440 cases) and Ethiopia (15 cases). Somalia is the 19th country to be reinfected with polio in the past two years.
"We had a case confirmed yesterday which reaffirms there has been regular exposure of Somalia to the virus, probably from Yemen," Bruce Aylward, co-ordinator of WHO's global polio eradication initiative, told a news briefing in Geneva.
The 15-month-old girl in the capital Mogadishu developed paralysis in July, according to the United Nations agency. "Although five nation-wide campaigns were conducted this year...to prevent the risk of a large-scale epidemic, insecurity in the country and low routine immunisation rates could still result in rapid spread of the virus across Somalia," it said.
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