World Health Organisation confirms two polio infectious in Papua New Guinea

ABC NEWS (Australia)

The World Health Organization has confirmed a polio outbreak in Papua New Guinea after diagnosing the virus in two healthy children. Genetic sequencing has shown the strain is linked to cases of polio currently circulating in neighbouring Indonesia.

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00:00the world has been very successful at eradicating it currently you have around 99 percent of the

00:09infections actually has been eradicated since 1990 1988 what we have in Papua New Guinea is

00:18something that the country was successful in eradicating polio in 2000 in 2018-19 we had a

00:27polio outbreak and the country actually successfully with partner support managed to squeal that outbreak

00:36today we have another outbreak and the reason it's dangerous for Papua New Guinea is because we

00:43have very very low vaccine coverage and so how is it believed it has resurfaced in Papua New Guinea

00:50polio knows no borders knows no boundaries there was an outbreak in Indonesia as you mentioned

00:58you know typically this virus is linked to the one in Indonesia so we found the virus I mean through

01:07the sewage samples the environmental testing samples they've detected the virus they've also seen the

01:14virus in healthy children in stool samples of healthy children that means the virus is now circulating in

01:22the community and what's the danger if it spreads rapidly polio has no cure we have in the early 60s

01:32and 70s seen children with iron lungs we've seen children really suffering through having their

01:42bones having their limbs affected but what we know is polio can be prevented so polio can be prevented just

01:50through vaccination what is critical for Papua New Guinea is we have less than 50 percent of our children

01:57vaccinated and so there's low immunity in the community there's low immunity among our children so we

02:04need to make sure at this moment that more than 90 percent of our children are vaccinated against polio

02:11and so how extensive are those efforts now to get it under control in PNG so the government has actually

02:19activated the their campaigns they've activated the NEC and what they are doing is in the two cities where

02:28we have founded Port Morrisby and in lay there has been an active already surveillance started and

02:35vaccination campaigns the government has also um what they have done is they've established four groups

02:42there is a group in terms of a research advisory group operational group which is supporting every

02:48single province in addressing this could PNG do with some help on this definitely there is multiple ways

02:58that the PNG could do with help on it it could definitely do with funding resources around 93 million

03:06kina are needed for the vaccination the government has already released through its NEC

03:13national executive council 13.5 million kina we have a budget deficit of 80 million kina which we are

03:22trying to mobilize globally so yes people could contribute to ensuring that they have the funds to get the

03:30vaccine the second is advocate for everybody to take the vaccines create the message that vaccination is

03:37safe immunization is safe all our children need to be vaccinated

03:43so

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