WHO starts emergency polio talks
The World Health Organisation announced on Monday that it
had convened emergency talks amid rising concern over polio after cases were
discovered in Afghanistan, Iraq and Equatorial Guinea.
The UN health agency said that following several days of
closed-door discussions, it would decide whether to declare the new spread of
polio a "public health emergency of international concern" that could
require measures such as travel restrictions.
WHO emergency meetings typically take the form of telephone
conferences between experts and officials around the globe, steered from the
agency's Geneva headquarters.
Polio, a crippling and potentially fatal viral disease that
mainly affects children under the age of five, has come close to being beaten
as the result of a 25-year effort.
The number of recorded cases worldwide has fallen from
350,000 in 1988 to 406 in 2013, according to WHO data.
Polio is currently endemic in three countries, Afghanistan,
Nigeria and Pakistan, down from 125 in 1988.
"However, wild poliovirus continues to spread
internationally from both endemic and re-infected countries," the WHO
said.
"Between January and April 2014, in what is usually the
low season for poliovirus transmission, three new international wild poliovirus
importation events have been detected, one each in Asia (Pakistan to
Afghanistan), the Middle East (Syria to Iraq) and central Africa (Cameroon to Equatorial
Guinea)."
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