Nhamoinesu Mseyamwa
WINDHOEK, Jun 18 2006 (IPS) – A national polio immunisation campaign is scheduled to take place in Namibia during the next few days this as the country grapples with its first outbreak of the disease in more than a decade.
Jack Vries, chairman of the National Health Emergency Management Committee, which is coordinating the Jun. 21-23 campaign, told IPS that officials faced a mammoth task in distributing vaccines to all of the state s 35 districts.
Namibia is the first country to attempt vaccination of all its residents, estimated at about two million, in ten years. The last state to run such a polio campaign was Albania, in 1996.
The United Nations Children s Fund is financing the immunisation drive, at a cost of 4.5 million U.S. dollars. Two more rounds of vaccinations will take place in July and August.
The latest outbreak of polio was first reported on May 7 in the small town of Aranos in south-eastern Namibia although the disease went undiagnosed at first. It took health officials about a month to confirm that the illness was polio, by which time seven people had died, and 39 been paralysed.
It all has to do with the state of the whole health delivery system. The country doesn t have testing facilities and that is why it took it three weeks to confirm that there was polio in the country, Phil ya Nangolo, executive director of the National Society for Human Rights, a non-governmental organisation based in the capital of Windhoek, told IPS.
The disease was eventually identified on Jun. 6, after specimens sent to a laboratory in neighbouring South Africa were shown to contain the polio virus.
To date, 10 people have died from the illness, all adults, while 61 have been infected. The outbreak has affected all ages, with roughly 90 percent of victims being between 20 and 40 years. One is 76 years old.
This is unusual, because in the vast majority of cases, poliomyelitis attacks children under the age of five years, not adults, Tomas Hakuendwi, an epidemiologist based in Windhoek, told IPS.
The outbreak has presented us with several mysteries. Namibia holds vaccination campaigns for children every year, something that has helped other countries to boost the immunity of the entire population, he added.
The last outbreak was in 1995, and at that time it did not kill people. This is raising questions why the virus has made a comeback so viciously, after so many years.
What is known is that the virus came from Angola. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has traced it to a strain found in Namibia s northern neighbour last year and which appears to have arrived in that country by way of India.
Most cases in Namibia have occurred in informal settlements north of the capital, but there are isolated cases in other parts of the country, said Kalumbi Shangula, the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Health.
Bruce Aylward, coordinator of the WHO s Global Polio Eradication Initiative, told IPS that there are concerns the virus could spread to other states in the region.
Fears have been voiced about the disease making its way to Zimbabwe and back to Angola, noted Shangula, because of the highàmovement of people from these countries to Namibia.
Immigration officials say over 50,000 Angolans and 20,000 Zimbabweans visit Namibia every month.
The solution lies (in) something (being) done along the borders. That is the only way the risks of importation can be reduced, added Aylward.
Initiatives to prevent polio from jumping the border again are underway.
The vaccine has also been distributed to all airlines, embassies, ports of entry into the country and at all border posts, said Vries. Those coming into Namibia will be vaccinated at the border posts.
Shangula told IPS that regional efforts are also being made to contain the polio threat: We are cooperating with most Southern African countries through the SADC (the Southern African Development Community) Health Protocol, which is aimed at addressing health problems and challenges facing the region.
That has been effective, and is the reason why Botswana and South Africa have said they would assist us in the immunisation drive.
According to the WHO s country representative in Namibia, Custodia Mandlhate, specialists from Geneva, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Tanzania are providing further assistance, having travelled to Windhoek to help with the immunisation campaign.
We ll go door to door, farm to farm, Mandlhate said. We need to reach everybody.
In addition, institutions such as the University of Namibia and the Polytechnic of Namibia have promised volunteers for the campaign, according to Vries.
Polio is a highly infectious disease that attacks the nervous system, and may cause paralysis. Early symptoms include fever, vomiting, headaches, limb pain and stiffness of the neck.
The virus is transmitted through the faeces of infected people, putting communities with poor sanitation at particular risk. There is currently no cure for polio; however, polio vaccines can provide life- long protection against the disease.
