Discovery of new polio cases spark fears of outbreak

Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Minister of Health Siti Fadilah Supari confirmed on Thursday that two more cases of polio were discovered in Sukabumi regency, West Java, sparking fears of a serious outbreak of the crippling virus in the country.

The new cases bring the number of known polio sufferers in the regency to six.

"As of today, there are six confirmed polio cases in Sukabumi," she said.

To prevent the spread of the incurable disease to neighboring regions, Siti said, the local health authorities are "isolating" the polio-affected area and forbidding the victims from leaving their villages.

After having been declared polio-free in 1995, Indonesia has now seen the reemergence of the disease. The first case since 1995 was found recently in Sukabumi, around 60 kilometers south of Jakarta.

All of the recent victims have been children, whose parents neglected to immunize them.

Health officials claim that this most recent polio virus likely was contracted in Saudi Arabia, which had a recent outbreak, apparently due to contact with people from Africa where at least two countries are still fighting to bring the virus under control.

The virus, the officials suspect, may have been carried by Indonesian migrant workers or pilgrims returning from Mecca.

Siti said the government had no plans to examine any tourists or businesspeople from Africa at seaports or airports as it was not deemed necessary.

"We will focus on national surveillance and mass immunization in West Java, Jakarta and Banten," she said.

The national immunization program is scheduled to start on May 31 and be completed in late June, for more than 5.6 million children, mostly those most vulnerable to polio.

After the discovery of the new cases in Sukabumi, there have been many other reports of paralyzed children across western Java. However, none outside of Sukabumi regency have been diagnosed as polio.

The Sukabumi health agency has reported 16 cases of possible polio in people that have come into contact with patients. "But none of them have shown symptoms of polio such as paralysis," ministry of health official, Yussharmen, said.

Jakarta health agency head Abdul Chalik Masulili said on Wednesday that his office was examining 17 cases of child paralysis in the capital, to find out whether any are polio.

The local authorities were now trying to immunize the estimated 800,000 children under five-years-old in the city, he added.

Poliomyelitis, widely known as polio, is a highly infectious viral disease that invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis, even death.

The virus enters the body through the mouth, and multiplies in the intestinal tract. After initial infection, the virus is shed intermittently in fecal matter for several weeks. During that period, the virus can spread rapidly through communities with substandard sanitation.

According to the World Health Organization, one in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis, usually affecting the legs.

Transmissions of the virus by immune and partially immune adults and children are also possible.