Snowy Owl
Retired in 2010, In Memoriam
Polio Strikes Seven Children in Burma
2007.05.15
BANGKOK?
But the Burmese official media say the virus entered the country through Bangladesh.
?We have even gone outside of Rakhine also, and the sample has been taken, so we are waiting for the results. So we can say that this outbreak is confined? to Rakhine state, said Nihal Singh, a medical officer for infectious diseases at the WHO Rangoon office.
Unlike the single polio infection in Burma in 2006, which was caused by a polio vaccine, the current outbreak is highly contagious, Singh said.
?This is the virus which spreads like anything, and our latest information is that this virus resembles the virus circulating in Bangladesh,? he said.
Children can contract polio from food, after which it spreads through the intestinal tract, Singh added.
The official Myanmar Times newspaper quoted a Burmese Health Ministry official as saying that that the polio strain found in Rakhine state had never previously been detected in Burma.
?This is a situation in which the virus had been transmitted across the border from a neighboring country,? he was quoted as saying, referring to Bangladesh.
UNICEF and the Burmese Health Ministry plan to vaccinate more than 500,000 children under the age of five in 17 townships in western Rakhine and Chin state, the newspaper said, with a second round of vaccinations in June to 2.5 million children in Rakhine and Chin states, and in Magway, Ayeyarwaddy, and western Bago divisions.
A planned third round will provide repeat vaccinations to children in the same regions, the report said.
The Burmese junta declared the country free of polio in 2000. Polio is spread when people, mainly children under five, come into contact with the feces of those with the virus, often through water.
The virus attacks the central nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy and deformation and, in some cases, death.
Vaccines developed in 1955 by Jonas Salk and in 1962 by Albert Sabin are credited with reducing of the annual number of polio cases from many hundreds of thousands to around 1,000.
In a 2006 report, the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health charged that Burmese government policies were sharply restricting health and humanitarian aid in the Southeast Asian country?creating ?an environment where AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, and bird flu (H5N1) are spreading unchecked.?
Original reporting by Kyaw Min Htun for RFA?s Burmese service. Burmese service director: Nancy Shwe. Produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.
2007.05.15
BANGKOK?
At least seven children along Burma?s border with Bangladesh have confirmed cases of polio, but how they acquired the crippling virus remains a mystery.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says seven children in Maungdaw township, Rakhine state, were found during medical examinations to have spread the infection to one another.
But the Burmese official media say the virus entered the country through Bangladesh.
?We have even gone outside of Rakhine also, and the sample has been taken, so we are waiting for the results. So we can say that this outbreak is confined? to Rakhine state, said Nihal Singh, a medical officer for infectious diseases at the WHO Rangoon office.
Unlike the single polio infection in Burma in 2006, which was caused by a polio vaccine, the current outbreak is highly contagious, Singh said.
?This is the virus which spreads like anything, and our latest information is that this virus resembles the virus circulating in Bangladesh,? he said.
Children can contract polio from food, after which it spreads through the intestinal tract, Singh added.
We have even gone outside of Rakhine also, and the sample has been taken, so we are waiting for the results. So we can say that this outbreak is confined.
Nihal Singh, WHO
WHO, along with the governments of Bangladesh and Burma, has sent emergency teams to the region to administer vaccines and try to contain the virus, he said.Nihal Singh, WHO
The official Myanmar Times newspaper quoted a Burmese Health Ministry official as saying that that the polio strain found in Rakhine state had never previously been detected in Burma.
?This is a situation in which the virus had been transmitted across the border from a neighboring country,? he was quoted as saying, referring to Bangladesh.
UNICEF and the Burmese Health Ministry plan to vaccinate more than 500,000 children under the age of five in 17 townships in western Rakhine and Chin state, the newspaper said, with a second round of vaccinations in June to 2.5 million children in Rakhine and Chin states, and in Magway, Ayeyarwaddy, and western Bago divisions.
A planned third round will provide repeat vaccinations to children in the same regions, the report said.
The Burmese junta declared the country free of polio in 2000. Polio is spread when people, mainly children under five, come into contact with the feces of those with the virus, often through water.
The virus attacks the central nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular atrophy and deformation and, in some cases, death.
Vaccines developed in 1955 by Jonas Salk and in 1962 by Albert Sabin are credited with reducing of the annual number of polio cases from many hundreds of thousands to around 1,000.
In a 2006 report, the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health charged that Burmese government policies were sharply restricting health and humanitarian aid in the Southeast Asian country?creating ?an environment where AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, and bird flu (H5N1) are spreading unchecked.?
Original reporting by Kyaw Min Htun for RFA?s Burmese service. Burmese service director: Nancy Shwe. Produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.