National emergency declared in Papua New Guinea due to a polio outbreak

Bangkok.- Papua New Guinea, an island nation in the Pacific, is facing a national emergency due to a polio outbreak, the first in the country since 2018, with agencies of the UN and the Australian Government involved in the response and vaccination process.

The World Health Organization (WHO) confirmed the outbreak this Friday and explained, on its X account specializing in polio, that it is working with the Papua New Guinean National Department of Health to "urgently stop the spread".

The detection of two cases of this highly infectious virus, which primarily affects children under 5 years old, "has triggered the activation of a national emergency response to protect children across the country" with two rounds of polio vaccination and awareness for families, according to a statement from the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF).

"Technical specialists in immunization, cold chain, promotion, and social behavior change have already been deployed at the national and provincial levels," said the UNICEF representative in Papua New Guinea, Veera Mendonca.

Polio Outbreak Alert

The WHO alerted of the outbreak after two children were diagnosed with the virus 18 years after the same organization declared Papua New Guinea "free of the disease", which recorded the last cases of this virus in 2018.

The disease was detected in an environmental sample from the country's capital, Port Moresby, as well as in another wastewater sample from the city of Lae, and UN agencies, along with the Australian Government, are working to stop its spread.

The virus is transmitted, according to the WHO, from person to person, mainly through the fecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common transmitting vehicle, such as contaminated water or food, and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.

One in every 200 polio infections results in irreversible paralysis and between 5% and 10% of those affected die from paralysis of the respiratory muscles.

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Cases caused by wild poliovirus have decreased by over 99% since 1988, when there were 350,000 cases in over 125 countries with endemic poliomyelitis, which today persists only in Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to WHO.

"If polio is not eradicated in these last remaining strongholds, the disease could reappear worldwide," states the WHO.