Wild polio virus spreads to Sumatra

Wild polio virus spreads to Sumatra

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The wild polio virus that has crippled 65 children across Java
looks to have spread to Sumatra, with the government confirming
one new positive case in a three-year-old girl in Lampung.

"We found that one child under the age of five in Lampung has
been infected by the virus and we will conduct an outbreak
immunization response as soon as possible," Ministry of Health
director-general for disease control and environmental health I
Nyoman Kandun said on Saturday.

The response aims to isolate the virus and prevent it from
spreading. It is usually conducted in an area where the virus is
discovered and neighboring areas where the mobility rate of
people is high.

The new positive case was the second outside West Java, where
the first case was found in April.

Less than a week before the second round of polio vaccination
campaigns in Banten, Jakarta and West Java on June 28, the health
ministry found the first positive case in Demak, Central Java.

"Last week, we carried out an ORI in Demak and Grobogan to
protect some 78,000 children under the age of five," Kandun said.
As long as there were pockets of unvaccinated children, there was
a possibility that the virus would spread further, he said.

The Ministry of Health, supported by the WHO, has just
completed two rounds of mass polio vaccinations in Banten,
Jakarta and West Java provinces to protect 6.5 million children
from the imported virus, which Indonesia has not seen since 1995.
The current outbreak began in Sukabumi in West Java.

The new cases have prompted the health ministry to schedule
another round of polio immunizations for children in Central
Java, Yogyakarta, Lampung and South Sumatra.

"If possible, we will cover a total of 10 provinces," Kandun
said.

The immunization, scheduled to take place either in August or
September, is expected to cover at least 12 million children
under the age of five.

Ideally, Kandun said, vaccinations should be conducted
simultaneously nationwide but this was more than the government
could afford.

The government spent Rp 100 billion on a national immunization
campaign in 1995.

Kandun said Indonesia would need support from other countries
and international organizations to carry out a larger vaccination
program.

"Health problems are a global concern, including this one," he
said. "If a country helps Indonesia overcome this outbreak, it is
in fact protecting itself from possible contractions."

Indonesia is the latest country where polio has resurfaced. In
2004 the WHO recorded 119 similar cases of polio in 15 previously
polio-free countries. Polio has not yet been eradicated from
Nigeria, India, Afghanistan, Egypt, Pakistan and the Sudan.

Poliomyelitis, widely known as polio, is a waterborne viral
disease that invades the nervous system and can cause total
paralysis and sometimes death.(003)