By Hauwa Ali
Malawian health authorities have declared an outbreak of wild poliovirus type 1 in the country after a case was detected in a three-year-old girl young child in the capital Lilongwe.
The case was confirmed after tests were carried out on samples from the infected child who was suffering from paralysis, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative.
It is not clear how or when the poliovirus entered Malawi, however, Laboratory analysis has linked the strain to the one found circulating in Sindh province in Pakistan.
The Malawian authorities are now working to contain any possible spread by boosting immunisation.
Polio usually affects children under five, sometimes leading to irreversible paralysis or sometimes death when breathing muscles are affected.
Twenty-five years ago thousands of children in Africa were paralysed by the virus. But following a mass vaccination campaign across the continent, 95% of the population has been immunised.
Africa had been previously declared free of wild polio and according to WHO, this detection does not affect the African region’s wild poliovirus-free certification status.
“As long as wild polio exists anywhere in the world all countries remain at risk of importation of the virus,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Director for Africa.
“Following the detection of wild polio in Malawi, we’re taking urgent measures to forestall its potential spread…” he added.
“Globally, there were only five cases in 2021,” according to Dr Modjirom Ndoutabe, Polio Coordinator in the WHO Regional Office for Africa.
Wild polio is caught from the environment. The last case of the wild polio virus in Africa was identified in northern Nigeria in 2016.
Polio remains endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan.