Polio has been reported in Venezuela, a crisis-wracked country where the disease had been eradicated decades ago, the Pan-American Health Organization reports. The organization said the child had no history of vaccination and lives in an under-immunized extremely impoverished Delta Amacuro state.
Polio, or poliomyelitis, is a crippling childhood disease caused by the poliovirus, and preventable through immunization. Doctor Jose Felix Oletta, a former Minister of Health, told AFP that the last case of acute poliomyelitis in Venezuela was reported in 1989.
"The virus especially affects people in conditions of malnutrition and unvaccinated, as this case," Oletta added. Oletta slammed health authorities in President Nicolas Maduro's government for taking more than a month to notify the PAHO that it had identified the virus. International health regulations require it to do so within 24 hours. Venezuela, devastated by economic and political crises, also accounted for 85 percent of cases of measles reported across Latin America and the Caribbean over the past year, the PAHO said.