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Burundi officials detect polio outbreak linked to vaccine
By MARIA CHENG58 minutes ago
LONDON (AP) — Health officials in Burundi have declared an outbreak of polio linked to the vaccine, the first time the paralytic disease has been detected in the East African country for more than three decades.
Polio has been diagnosed in an unvaccinated four-year-old child in the western part of the country and in two other children who were contacts of the child, authorities in Burundi confirmed in a statement on Friday. Officials also found traces of the virus in sewage samples, confirming the circulation of polio.
The virus that sickened the children was found to be a mutated strain of polio that initially came from an oral vaccine.
The Burundi government declared the polio outbreak to be a national public health emergency and plans to start an immunization campaign within weeks, aimed at protecting all children up to age seven.
“We are supporting the national efforts to ramp up polio vaccination to ensure no child is missed and faces polio’s debilitating impact,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO’s Africa director.
The epidemic is another setback for the global effort to wipe out polio led by the World Health Organization and partners, which first began in 1988 and initially aimed to eradicate the disease in a dozen years.
https://apnews.com/article/polio-bur...672414d9a5f2c0
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