Las condiciones de miseria en la que viven millones de personas a causa de los ataques norteamericanos contra Afganistán y Pakistán, Siria e Irak, entre otros, pasan factura en forma de epidemia.
de poliomelitis de tan triste recuerdo en la postguerra española
El mundo entero -y no esa cínica "mini comunidad internacional otánica"- le debe al estado gamberro U.S.A. esta nueva tragedia.
La OMS declara emergencia global por la expansión de la polio
Publicado: 5 may 2014 | 13:00 GMT
La Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) ha declarado a la polio
como amenaza global para la salud pública, ya que los recientes brotes
del virus en más de una decena de países en Asia, África y Oriente Medio
pueden expandirse a otros países, informa la agencia Bloomberg. En los últimos meses la polio reapareció incluso en países antes considerados libres de dicha enfermedad.
Los países que más riesgo presentan, según la OMS, son Siria, Pakistán y Camerún, que tienen que declarar la emergencia nacional y vacunar a todos sus ciudadanos antes de que viajen al extranjero.
Polio Declared Emergency as Conflicts Fuel Virus Spread
By Simeon BennettMay 5, 2014 1:22 PM GMT+0200
Photographer: Mohammed Huwais/AFP via Getty Images
A health worker gives a young child drops of oral polio vaccine on April 7, 2014 in an... Read More
The spread of polio to countries previously considered free of the
crippling disease represents a global health emergency, the World Health
Organization said.
Pakistan, Cameroon and Syria pose the
greatest risk of exporting the virus to other countries, the
Geneva-based WHO said in an e-mailed statement today. Those nations
should declare national public health emergencies and ensure that
residents have been vaccinated before they travel internationally, WHO
Director General Margaret Chan said, citing recommendations from an emergency committee.
Polio,
driven to the brink of eradication in 2012, has resurged as conflicts
from Sudan to Pakistan disrupt vaccination campaigns. The number of
cases reached a record low of 223 globally in 2012 and jumped to 417 last
year, according to the WHO. There have been 68 this year as of April
30, during what is usually polio’s “low season,” the United Nations
health agency said.
“Conflict makes it very difficult for the vaccinators to get to the children who need vaccine,” said David Heymann,
a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and
Tropical Medicine, in an interview before the WHO’s announcement. “It’s
been more difficult to finish than had been hoped.”
An $11.8 billion
eradication campaign backed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
and Rotary International reduced polio to three countries in which it
spreads locally: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. In the past 12
months, the virus has spread to Syria, Iraq, Cameroon, Equatorial
Guinea, Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia, according to the WHO.
Vaccination Efforts
While the number of cases in Afghanistan and Nigeria dropped by more than half
last year, they jumped by 60 percent in Pakistan, where vaccination
efforts have been hampered by rumors the shots cause infertility, and
after the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency used a fake vaccination
program to help hunt down Osama bin Laden. Twenty polio vaccinators and
nine police officers assigned to guard them were killed in Pakistan last
year, according to Rotary.
“Any time there’s any reason to doubt vaccines, there are rumors that spread,” Heymann said by phone today.
The
polio virus, which is spread through feces, attacks the nervous system
and can cause paralysis within hours, and death in as many as 10 percent
of its victims. There is no cure. The disease can be prevented by
vaccines made by companies including Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline Plc.
Cases of polio, which paralyzed generations around the globe and crippled former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, have dropped 99 percent since 1988, largely thanks to the global vaccination campaign backed by Bill and Melinda Gates.
“The
consequences of further international spread are particularly acute
today given the large number of polio-free but conflict-torn and fragile
states which have severely compromised routine immunization services
and are at high risk of re-infection,” the WHO said in today’s
statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Simeon Bennett in Geneva at sbennett9@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Phil Serafino at pserafino@bloomberg.net Marthe Fourcade
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