The first phase of the biggest UN-sponsored polio vaccination campaign ever undertaken in the history of the Middle East came to a conclusion.
In a joint press release, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF said that 25 million children under the age of five were reached in seven countries in 37 rounds.
"Despite immense challenges and the desperate conditions around the region, children were vaccinated from three to six times. This gives a glimpse of hope and was made largely possible by thousands of unsung heroes: committed health workers and volunteers who undertook such a formidable task all over the region and inside Syria, braving dangers to provide polio vaccinations to children" said Maria Calivis, UNICEF’s Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa.
The report attributes the return of polio to Syria after 14 years to factors like the disruption of routine immunization, severe damage to Syria’s health infrastructure, continuous population displacement within Syria and across its borders and missing out on children.
According to the report, polio vaccination coverage has dramatically declined in Syria from an average of 99% to 52%. At least 60% of Syria’s hospitals have been destroyed or damaged and less than a third of public ambulances still function. Supply of vaccinations, service vehicles and cold chain equipment have been damaged, put permanently out of service or were lost. "Polio has forced its way back into Syria, adding to what was already a humanitarian disaster. We had reached a point where we had to work with very limited resources to defeat what had been a long forgotten enemy in this region: one that does not know borders or checkpoints and can travel fast, infecting children not just in war torn Syria but across the region," said Chris Maher, WHO Manager for Polio Eradication and Emergency Support.
More than 6.5 million Syrian children are now in need of life-saving humanitarian assistance. Inside Syria, 765,000 children under the age of five live in hard-to-reach areas where conflict and restriction make it extremely difficult to reach them with humanitarian assistance including regular access to vaccines.
The report recommended undertaking a number of critical actions to end the polio spread in the region, such as granting immediate and unhindered access to hard-to-reach children under the age of five inside Syria, guaranteeing the safe passage of health workers and protecting medical vehicles and other cold chain equipment inside Syria. The report also recommended raising awareness regarding polio and the need to vaccinate all children under the age of five around the region multiple times and securing funding to undertake repeated vaccination rounds by the end of 2014.
So far, 36 children have been paralyzed by polio in Syria. Prior to this outbreak, the report reads, no polio cases had been recorded in Syria since 1999. The risk of spread to countries in the region and beyond is still considered high.
The Iraqi Ministry of Health declared on March 30 a polio outbreak when one case of polio was detected in a child in the Al-Rusafa area in the capital Baghdad. A second polio case with paralysis onset on 7 April 2014 was also detected in Baghdad.