Guyana heightens polio surveillance after isolated case confirmed in Venezuela

Guyana is currently one percent shy of achieving the recommended vaccination coverage needed to ward off the re-emergent of polio. Based on PAHO/WHO statistics, Guyana, and three other territories – Trinidad and Tobago, Bahamas and Antigua and Barbuda – have 94 percent vaccination coverage.

In its polio coverage report, which highlights the state of coverage of 41 countries in the Caribbean and the Americas, a mere nine countries have achieved the PAHO/WHO 95 percent vaccination coverage or higher.

While the Cayman Islands has achieved 95 percent coverage and Costa Rica has 96 percent coverage, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Aruba have both attained 97 percent coverage. The report names Cuba as the territory with 98 percent coverage, while four other countries – Montserrat, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Nicaragua and Sint Maarten – top the list with 100 percent coverage.

But Guyana is well on its way to improving its coverage, says Maternal and Child Health Officer, within the Ministry of Public Health, Dr. Oneka Scott. According to Dr. Scott, primary among Guyana’s strategy is heightened surveillance. Through this tactical move, she anticipates that Guyana will be able to quickly detect any evidence of acute flaccid paralysis associated with the disease. This condition is one, which manifests with the sudden onset of weakness in any part of the body of a child younger than 15 years of age. Poliomyelitis is a highly contagious disease caused by a virus that invades the nervous system, resulting in paralysis in a matter of hours. It mostly affects children under the age of five and is transmitted from person-to-person.

Guyana’s move to heighten surveillance comes on the heels of reports of a case of polio reported in neighbouring territory, Venezuela. But Dr. Scott, in commenting on that situation, said that while Venezuela had reported a case which was confirmed as polio, that case was not endemic, but rather was vaccine-associated. “That was one isolated case, but we have stepped up our surveillance nevertheless.”

Her message as the public health sector implements measures to safeguard the nation is that “we have to work together for surveillance to be effective; we all have to be looking for people with the symptoms associated with polio.”

Just recently, PAHO/WHO issued an advisory, which urged countries to take immediate action to increase polio vaccination coverage to at least 95 percent, given the fact that a number of countries are below the recommended level.

But according to PAHO/ WHO, the Americas have remained free from cases of wild poliovirus for 27 years, with the last case detected on August 23, 1991, in Peru. The countries of this region were able to eliminate polio by achieving high rates of vaccination coverage of children and through sustained epidemiological surveillance to ensure early detection of any outbreaks. “The Region of the Americas is polio-free, but as long as even one case of polio exists in any part of the world, we are still at risk,” said Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, Assistant Director of PAHO.

“By achieving and maintaining high vaccination coverage, and by strengthening epidemiological surveillance, we can make the dream of a polio-free future for the world, a reality,” he added.

Since recent reports show that countries are not maintaining the 95 percent vaccination coverage rate required at all levels to prevent polio transmission, this means that some communities are at risk of being unable to prevent an outbreak, should an imported case occur or if there is an emergence of vaccinederived poliovirus [VDPV]. While there is no cure, the virus is preventable by vaccine. Polio vaccine, given multiple times, can protect a child for life.

In 1975, nearly 6,000 cases of polio were reported in the Region of the Americas, and in 1991, the last six cases were detected. Three years later, in 1994, the disease was formally declared eliminated from the Region. Since then, no child has been paralyzed by wild poliovirus in the Americas. As the first region of the world to eliminate polio, the Americas, supported by PAHO, has led the way toward a world free from the disease. (Kaieteur News)