Mass vaccination is underway after the World Health Organization’s (WHO) expressed deep concern and said neighbouring countries were at risk as it declared an outbreak of the poliovirus in Papua New Guinea.
Community transmission of the virus was confirmed in the city of Lae after a screening programme detected the fast-spreading virus in stool samples from two healthy children.
The mass immunisation programme will target around 3.5 million vaccinated and unvaccinated children between the ages of 0 and 10.
In Australia, a spokesperson for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said the federal government was supporting PNG’s response to the outbreak with “targeted technical assistance.”
“Australia is working closely with Papua New Guinea, the World Health Organisation and UNICEF to help respond to the detection of vaccine-derived poliovirus,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
Poliovirus Type 2 has also been found in environmental samples in the capital, Port Moresby.
WHO representative in PNG, Dr Sevil Huseynova, said the outbreak posed a serious risk to young children in PNG, where less than 50 per cent of the population is immunised against the disease.
“In communities with low polio immunisation rates, the virus quickly spreads from one person to another,” she said.
Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that mainly affects children under the age of five.
The virus is transmitted through the faeces and saliva of an infected person — often passed on via contaminated hands, food, or water — before it makes its way into somebody’s gut.
Most people infected with polio show no symptoms; the ones that do generally get a flu-like illness.
