Polio outbreak could spread: Canadian Medical Association
June 23, 2010
THE CANADIAN PRESS
The Canadian Medical Association Journal is warning that a widening outbreak of polio in Tajikistan is threatening to reignite spread of the dangerous virus in other regions of the world.
An editorial in the journal warns that places where polio vaccination rates have sagged are at risk of having renewed spread of the disease if the outbreak isn’t brought under control.
The journal’s top editors say Canada needs to ramp up polio vaccination rates here, noting Ontario’s childhood vaccination rate is about on par with that of Tajikistan.
The Tajikistan case is the first sustained outbreak of polio in a country that had previously been declared polio free.
The World Health Organization says that as of June 15 there have been 239 reported cases of polio in Tajikistan, which is more than two-thirds of the global total so far this year.
The WHO and several partner organizations have been trying to eradicate polio for the past 22 years but the goal keeps evading them.