Suspected polio cases found in Syria for first time in 14 years

LONDON (Reuters) - Two suspected cases of polio have been detected in Syria, the first appearance of the incurable viral disease there in 14 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Saturday.

The U.N. body said initial test results from a cluster of cases of acute flaccid paralysis in the eastern province of Deir al-Zor in early October had come back positive for the crippling disease.

The WHO is still waiting for final test results from its regional reference laboratory. Wild poliovirus was last reported in Syria in 1999.

"The Ministry of Health of the Syrian Arab Republic confirms that it is treating this event as a cluster ... and an urgent response is currently being planned across the country, " the Geneva-based WHO said in statement.

"Syria is considered at high-risk for polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases due to the current situation."

More than 100,000 people have been killed in Syria's 2-1/2-year-old conflict, which began with popular protests against President Bashar al-Assad before degenerating into civil war. Nearly 2.2 million refugees have fled the country.

Polio is a highly infectious disease that invades the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours. It is endemic in just three countries, Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, but sporadic cases also occur in other countries from time to time.

According to latest data from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, there have been 296 cases of the disease worldwide so far this year.

There is no cure for polio, but it can be prevented with immunization. Polio vaccine, given in multiple doses in a child's early years, almost always protects a child for life.

The WHO said it had issued a surveillance alert for the region to actively search for additional potential cases. Additional emergency immunization activities are also being planned in neighboring countries.

The WHO recommends that all travelers to and from polio-infected areas be fully vaccinated.

http://news.yahoo.com/suspected-polio-cases-found-syria-first-time-...

The polio virus itself is not an effective biological weapon, but the experiment shows the tremendous potential of genetic engineering and also highlights its problems, particularly when applied to smallpox. The current risk assessments with regard to this virus rate the likelihood of an attack as being rather low, because it is highly unlikely—although not completely impossible—that countries other than Russia and the USA have access to it. If it should become possible to rebuild variola major, the smallpox virus, in the laboratory from scratch—and the virus's genome sequence is available from biological databases—this risk could change greatly. Smallpox is an ideal biological weapon, particularly for terrorist groups, because it is highly infectious and lethal and there is no effective treatment available.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1326447/

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Permalink Reply by Frances Farmer on October 24, 2013 at 1:25pm

(Reuters) - At least 22 people are suspected of having polio in Syria, the first outbreak of the crippling viral disease in 14 years, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday.

Asked whether the virus may have been imported into Syria by a foreign fighter, Rosenbauer said: "The first step is virological verification that it is the polio virus. The next step is that every isolated virus gets looked at genetically to see where is the parent. Hopefully that will provide some clarity on where it would have come from."

Most of those stricken with acute flaccid paralysis, a symptom of diseases including polio, in Deir al-Zor province are children under the age of two, WHO spokesman Oliver Rosenbauer said. More than 100,000 children under the age of five are deemed at risk of polio in the eastern province.

There is no cure for the highly infectious disease, it can only be prevented through immunization, usually three doses.

"The main concern right now is to quickly launch an immunization response," Rosenbauer said. Vaccination campaigns are being planned across Syria from November but the logistics were still being discussed, he said.

The city of Deir al-Zor is partially controlled by Syrian government forces while the countryside around it is in the hands of rebels fighting to remove President Bashar al-Assad.

"Everybody is treating this as an outbreak (of polio) and is in outbreak response mode," Rosenbauer said.

The WHO, a U.N. agency, said on Saturday that two suspected cases of polio had been detected, the first appearance of the disease in Syria since 1999.

Initial tests came back positive for polio in two of the 22 cases and final laboratory results due next week from a WHO reference laboratory in Tunisia are "very, very likely" to confirm presence of the virus, Rosenbauer said.

Most of the 22 victims are believed never to have been vaccinated or to have received only a single dose of the oral polio vaccine.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/24/us-syria-crisis-polio-idU...