NEWS: Polio case reported in Amuru district

Tuesday, 24th February, 2009 from NEW VISION

A child is being treated for polio in Amuru district 12 years since the last case was reported in Uganda. No case had been reported in the country since 1996 and in 2006, the WHO declared Uganda free of Polio. A country is declared polio-free if no case of the disease is found for 10 years. But a sample from a 16-month-old baby boy admitted to Lacor Hospital with weakness in the limbs, has tested positive for the polio virus. The child is said to have been living in Awer camp for the internally displaced persons and he was first treated for malaria. Samples from two other suspected cases in the camp have been taken for testing at the Centres for Disease Control in Entebbe. Doctors in Amuru said the patients present with acute flaccid paralysis, which is the weakness of limbs. The district health officer, Dr. Patrick Odong, yesterday said the preliminary results from the sample tested positive. He said the sample had been sent to South Africa for confirmatory tests. A team from the Ministry of Health is expected in Amuru today to carry out verification and collect more samples, he said. The assistant commissioner for epidemic surveillance, Dr. Issa Makumbi and Dr. Possy Mugyenyi of the Uganda National Expanded Programme on Immunisation said the preliminary tests had showed positive results. Makumbi said he had sent a team to the district to check on the situation. Due to the global sensitivity to polio, the health ministry reported constant surveillance. “We don’t want any chances of polio re-entry into the country. We are concerned that the disease may spread from our neighbours,” Monica Musenero, the principle epidemiologist, said. Last year, the ministry and the WHO issued a polio alert and launched an immunisation programme after cases were reported in the neighbouring DR Congo. The districts that were feared to be under threat were Kanungu, Kisoro, Rukungiri, Kabale and Kasese. Others were Bundibugyo, Ntungamo, Mbarara and Bushenyi. This was because of their closeness to the Congo border and the fact that Congolese were fleeing into Uganda, escaping the armed conflict back home. The health ministry and the WHO launched a polio immunisation campaign in Kanungu last year, which targeted children below five years in the nine districts bordering Congo. In the first week of February, about 1.4 million children in 23 districts were immunised against polio. The two-day sub-national immunisation targeted children below five years. “Our target was to reach 80% of the children in the 25 risky districts. So far, we have immunised 1.4 million children, which is 90% coverage,” said Mugyenyi.