Europe Soon to Be Declared Free of Polio
Fri Jun 14,11:08 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters Health) - The World Health Organisation is expected to announce next week that the European Region is free of polio ( news - web sites).

No cases of wild polio transmission have been reported in the 51 countries included in the region for 3 years, the UN agency said in a note on Friday. The last documented case of indigenous transmission was seen in 1998 in Turkey.

WHO's European Regional Certification Commission is meeting next Thursday and Friday as it has done regularly since 1996. The scientists on the Commission will review progress towards ensuring poliovirus containment by laboratories and will decide whether to certify the WHO European Region as polio-free.

"The Commission will review evidence from the 51 Member States in the Region to certify that wild poliovirus transmission has been interrupted and that the Region has adequate capacity to detect and keep the virus under control," WHO said.

The push to eradicate polio by universal vaccination was launched in 1988 and is spearheaded by WHO, UNICEF ( news - web sites), the UN Foundation and Rotary International.

Unlike many other diseases, polio can be eradicated because there are no long-term human, animal or insect carriers of the disease. The polio vaccine produces lifelong immunity to the disease.

In 1988, the disease paralysed more than 1,000 children a day. For the whole of 2001 just 473 cases were reported, representing a 99.8% reduction.

Globally, WHO and its partners have set the end of 2002 as the deadline for an end to transmission of the disease, with a further surveillance period of 3 years before the world could be certified polio-free.

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