Health Alerts

Three years after it started, Somalia’s cVDPV3 polio outbreak has been declared over by the WHO (without resulting in any international spread), however the agency warns that the ‘cVDPV2 outbreak continues to paralyse children, and environmental samples – sewage water – consistently show that virus moving through Somali communities’. In other VDPV news, a WHO global update issued on Mar 26 showed a sharp rise in both cVDPV cases and environmental samples in 2020 compared to 2019. Twenty-one of the 27 affected countries are in the African region and there are several genetically-distinct cVDPV2 strains causing outbreaks. The agency assessed the risk of cVDPV spread to be very high in the African region and high in the Eastern Mediterranean region. In the latest weekly polio news, two countries reported cVDPV2 infections: South Sudan - 3 cases in the states of Unity, Jonglei and Equatoria; and two more cases in Tajikistan (Khatlon province). Read More