APA-Johannesburg (South Africa) The World Health Organisation (WHO) said Tanzanian authorities have detected a case of polio in the southwest of the country close to the border with Zambia.
In a statement on Friday, WHO said Tanzanian health officials notified the UN agency on July 4 of the “detection of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) in the country.”
“The virus was isolated from a case of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) in the Rukwa region, southwestern Tanzania bordering Lake Tanganyika to the west and Zambia to the south,” WHO said.
It announced that gene sequencing of the isolated virus indicated close linkage with the cVDPV2 circulating in Demographic Republic of Congo’s South Kivu region.
“The case is a child under two years old who had previously received several doses of the polio vaccine in 2022 and had no documented travel history.
“The child was initially reported as a case of AFP from Rukwa region of southwestern Tanzania who experienced paralysis in late May 2023.”
The agency said Tanzanian Ministry of Health officials are currently conducting further field investigations, including strengthening the AFP surveillance to identify potential un-or under-immunised populations.
Polio is a highly infectious disease that largely affects children under five years of age, causing permanent paralysis (approximately 1 in 200 infections) or death (2-10% of those paralyzed).
The virus is transmitted from person-to-person – mainly through the fecal-oral route – and multiplies in the intestines, from where it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis.
Vaccine-derived poliovirus is a well-documented strain of poliovirus mutated from the strain originally contained in oral polio vaccine.
The polio virus has also been detected in neighbouring Malawi and Mozambique.
JN/APA