Tru News | 7 April 2016
A case of polio has been reported in Mali – and the victim is a child who just received the vaccine. The child was infected with the strain that consisted of three live and one weakened strain given orally.
Dead vaccines cannot mutate, but many developing countries don’t have enough supplies, according to the New York Times. It is the first time Mali has had a polio case since 2011, according to the New York Times. The child is from Guinea but was treated in Bamako.
The World Health Organization is now trying to prevent an outbreak with an emergency vaccination drive. There are three planned events in the next six months. Many WHO and United Nations staff members just happened to be in the area.
“The plan is to go big and go aggressive,” said Dr. Hamid Jafari, the head of WHO’s polio eradication.
There were 55 cases of paralysis due to vaccine-derived polio worldwide in 2014 and 66 in 2013. So far this year, 12 have been reported, in addition to Mali. Nine were on Madagascar, one in Nigeria, and two in Ukraine.
Jafari said the virus may have circulated around Guinea for a while because frozen stool samples were not shipped during the Ebola outbreak.
