• Multi-country immunization campaigns took place this week (26-29 April) across West Africa. Benin, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone all participated, aiming to reach nearly 30 million children under the age of five years with oral polio vaccine (OPV).

• Next week, the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on immunization (SAGE) will meet in Geneva, Switzerland, from 9-11 April. Among other immunization topics, SAGE is expected to review the global polio situation. The draft agenda of the SAGE meeting is available at http://www.who.int/immunization/sage/en/.

• In Somalia, a new circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) from January 2013 was reported.
• This latest case is confirmation that the cVDPV2 outbreak from 2011 in south-central Somalia is ongoing. In 2012, this outbreak had also spread across the border into neighbouring Kenya. Outbreak response continues to be implemented. See ‘Horn of Africa’ section below for more.

Polio transmission is heating up in northwestern Nigeria just as populations move back along traditional stock routes and into areas now affected by conflict, such as Mali.

In Nigeria, authorities are focusing on making sure vaccination activities are well-implemented in the northwest of the country, particularly in Sokoto and Zamfara states. It is from this area that poliovirus has in the past spread into west Africa, causing outbreaks in previously polio-free areas. This risk is currently magnified by the security situation in Mali, and associated population movements.

FACTS & FIGURES

- There have been 706 cases globally this year (635 type 1 and 71 type 3), compared with 1 126 cases at this time last year (387 type 1, 735 type 3, four type 1/3 mixtures). 17 countries have reported cases in 2010, compared with 21 at this time last year.

- As of 28 September, 151 districts have been infected with wild poliovirus in 2010 - an almost 65% reduction compared with the 408 districts infected at the same time last year.

- In September, Sierra Leone and Liberia came off the active outbreak list (no cases in the past six months) while

1. Executive Summary

FOR the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), 2009 was a pilot year: an irony for a 20-year effort, but one that breathed innovation and fresh thinking into the initiative. At the beginning of the year, poliovirus survived in parts of four countries and was causing a large-scale international outbreak for the second time in five years. Poliovirus had - for the first time - re-established transmission in several countries. Noting that the strategies which successfully eradicated polio from 99% of the world were not working in the remaining 1%, the World

Polio outbreak in Tajikistan: Wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) has been detected in Tajikistan, representing the first importation of poliovirus in the WHO European Region since it was certified polio-free in 2002. The virus is most closely related to viruses originating in Uttar Pradesh, India. 199 cases of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) have been reported, the majority of these having had onset of paralysis in April. To date, WPV1 had been isolated in 32 of these cases. This outbreak underscores the danger that spread from WPV transmission anywhere in the world continues

Plus de 77 millions d'enfants à vacciner dans 16 pays

DAKAR/BRAZZAVILLE, vendredi 23 avril 2010 - Plus de 77 millions d'enfants dans 16 pays seront vaccinés contre la polio à partir de demain (samedi) au cours du deuxième tour d'une campagne synchronisée visant à stopper l'épidémie de polio en Afrique de l'ouest et du centre.

Toutefois, le Burkina Faso et la Sierra Leone ont du retarder leur campagne jusqu'au 7 mai en raison des retards pris dans la livraison des vaccins à la suite de la fermeture de l'espace aérien en Europe en lien avec l'éruption volcanique en Islande. Les stocks

85 millions d'enfants seront vaccinés dans 19 pays

Dakar/Brazzaville, 4 mars 2010 - Plus de 85 millions d'enfants de moins de cinq ans seront vaccinés contre la polio dans 19 pays d'Afrique de l'ouest et du centre dans un élan massif de coopération transfrontalière pour mettre un coup d'arrêt à une épidémie de poliomyélite qui dure depuis plus d'une année.

Neuf pays d'Afrique de l'ouest et du centre - Burkina Faso, Cameroun, Tchad, Guinée, Libéria, Mali, Mauritanie, Sénégal et Sierra Leone - sont considérés ayant des foyers actifs de poliomyélite