Polio Campaign to Wrap up Today

Over the period Dec. 15 - 18, Yemeni Ministry of Health and Population in collaboration World Health Organization implemented an anti-polio campaign which targeted over four million children nationwide.

Minister of Health Abdu Al-Karim Ras'e told media outlets that the campaign aims to raise the immunity of Yemen children under the age of five against polio, together with facing any potential infection recorded during the pilgrimage season, wherein the likelihood of catching the virus becomes higher, especially when pilgrims come in close contact with people from infected areas in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria and India.

UNICEF Acting Representative, Anne-Marie Fonseka said this campaign is important in sustaining Yemen’s successful effort for controlling the polio outbreak that seriously threatened the country in 2005. For this mass vaccination effort, UNICEF has procured 5 million doses of oral polio vaccine, at a cost of 635,500 $ US Dollars. The country wide mass vaccination is being led by Ministry of Public Health and Population with the support of UNICEF, Centre of Disease Control (CDC), WHO and USAID.

Ras'e pointed out that polio virus has existed once again in Somalia and Sudan, declining the existence of any polio-afflicted cases in 2007 and maintained that just 478 epidemic cases were recorded in Hodeidah in 2005.   

He added that one case was reported in 2006 and recorded in Ibb's Hobaish district, hinting his ministry has so far implemented 10 campaigns and will implement the second phase of the current campaign in April 2008. He also predicted that Yemen will be announced free of polio in 2009.

World Health Organizations' reports indicate that 90 percent of world countries are free from polio due to the extended anti-polio campaigns.

Meanwhile, head of Liver Unit at Sana'a –based Republican Hospital Prof. Mohammed Salem Noman stated that over 5 million Yemenis are afflicted by Hepatitis B, blaming this inflating percentage on irrational use of pesticides by farmers and pollution. He also maintained this percentage is the highest worldwide. 

Likewise, Dr. Ali Al-Midhwahi pointed out that 53.1 percent of Yemeni children suffer from sever dwarfism, and 21.5 percent suffer severe skinniness; while 45.6 percent of children (over 4 million) under the age of five suffer underweight.

Like Hepatitis B, malnutrition among children is the highest in the world and World Food Program noted that mortality rate among newborn babies is still high. International reports nominate poverty as the main reasons for children's different sufferings.

Family Budget Survey Report prepared by Central Organization of Statistics in collaboration with the World Bank pointed out that the situation in Yemen is the worst in the Middle East and the North of Africa.

The report added the poverty gap is that of 8.9 percent mounting to YR 497, hinting the poor individual should receive on average YR 1431 to enable him to get over his worse situation.

The door-to-door vaccination was necessitated by outbreak of polio in 2005 after re-emergence of polio in Yemen. The outbreak reached its peak in July 2005 when a total of number of children were infected by the polio virus reached 479 cases. Hodeida and Ibb were among the worst affected Governorates.