Syrian polio outbreak hits global effort to eradicate virus

GENEVA Three cases of polio have been confirmed in Syria’s Deir al-Zor governorate, the first re-emergence of the virus in Syria since 2014, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative said on Thursday.

It said two cases of a paralyzing strain were found in early May in people who had started to become paralyzed, and as one in a healthy child.

The strain of the virus was vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2. Vaccine-dervied polioviruses are mutations of polio strains used in the oral polio vaccine, and can cause outbreaks in places where vaccine coverage is poor.

The original wild type 2 has not been detected anywhere since 1999, but other types of wild poliovirus have caused three cases in Afghanistan and two in Pakistan this year, and there have also been four vaccine-derived cases in Congo.

In Syria, a wild poliovirus type 1 outbreak caused 36 cases in 2013-2014, before being successfully stopped. There were two vaccination campaigns in Deir al-Zor in March and April this year but only limited coverage was possible, since access Zor is compromised by security problems, the group said in a statement said.

However, detection of the cases did demonstrate that disease surveillance systems were functional in Syria, it added.

On May 29 a World Health Organization spokeswoman told Reuters that there had been 50 cases of acute flaccid paralysis in the governorate since the start of 2017, but no stool samples had yet tested positive for polio.

“Insecurity continues to severely hamper access in Deir Ez-Zor and other parts of Syria. This not only adversely affects vaccination, but also the transportation of stool samples to polio labs to be tested for polioviruses,” she said.

The virus, which invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours, spreads rapidly among children, especially in unsanitary conditions in war-torn regions, refugee camps and areas where healthcare is limited.

The Global Polio Eradication Initiative, launched in 1988, originally aimed to end all transmission of the disease by 2000. Success would make polio only the second human disease to be eradicated since smallpox was banished in 1980.

(Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)