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Nov. 25, 2006: A Bangladeshi woman watches her daughter as she is
administered oral drops by a volunteer in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Photo:
AFP/Farjana K. Godhuly
BANGKOK—At least seven children along Burma’s border with Bangladesh have
confirmed cases of polio, but how they acquired the crippling virus
remains a mystery.
The World Health Organization (WHO) says seven children in Maungdaw
township, Rakhine state, were found during medical examinations to have
spread the infection to one another. But the Burmese official media say
the virus entered the country through Bangladesh.
“We have even gone outside of Rakhine also, and the sample has been
taken, so we are waiting for the results. So we can say that this
outbreak is confined” to Rakhine state, said Nihal Singh, a medical
officer for infectious diseases at the WHO Rangoon office.
Unlike the single polio infection in Burma in 2006, which was caused by a
polio vaccine, the current outbreak is highly contagious, Singh said.
“This is the virus which spreads like anything, and our latest
information is that this virus resembles the virus circulating in
Bangladesh,” he said.
Children can contract polio from food, after which it spreads through the
intestinal tract, Singh added.
We’re very far along in polio eradication globally, so outbreaks of
paralytic polio anywhere are a major concern.
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Chris Beyrer, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University school
of public health, called the polio outbreak a cause for serious worry.
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'A major concern'
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“We’re very far along in polio eradication globally, so outbreaks of
paralytic polio anywhere are a major concern,” Beyrer said, adding that
Burmese health monitoring is weak, and “of course there are large parts
of the country that are not well surveyed at all.”
“We always have to be cautious about statements about a lot of areas but
particularly in things such as infectious disease surveillance,” he said,
referring to the junta’s claim in 2000 that Burma was polio-free. “This
junta has really grossly under-funded health care for two decades now,”
Beyrer said.
Asked about the government’s assertion that this polio outbreak
originated in Bangladesh, he added: “I think in general they have been
very sensitive to accusations that they are the epicenter for infectious
diseases for their neighbors. So I think you have to see it in the wider
political context.”
“Now the fact is that there is very good evidence that the mismanaged
malaria program in Burma has indeed played an important role in
generating drug resistant malaria both on the India-Burma border as well
as the Thai-Burma border. So in other disease situations, and this goes
for HIV as well, they have been seen as playing this role. So they are
very sensitive to the accusation that this is their problem.”
In a 2006 report, the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public
Health charged that Burmese government policies were sharply restricting
health and humanitarian aid in the Southeast Asian country—creating “an
environment where AIDS, drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, and bird
flu (H5N1) are spreading unchecked.”
WHO, along with the governments of Bangladesh and Burma, has sent
emergency teams to the region to administer vaccines and try to contain
the virus, he said.
We have even gone outside of Rakhine also, and the sample has been taken,
so we are waiting for the results. So we can say that this outbreak is
confined.
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The official
Myanmar Times
newspaper quoted a Burmese Health Ministry official as saying that the
polio strain found in Rakhine state had never previously been detected in
Burma.
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Media blame Bangladesh
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“This is a situation in which the virus had been transmitted across the
border from a neighboring country,” he was quoted as saying, referring to
Bangladesh.
UNICEF and the Burmese Health Ministry plan to vaccinate more than
500,000 children under the age of five in 17 townships in western Rakhine
and Chin state, the newspaper said, with a second round of vaccinations
in June to 2.5 million children in Rakhine and Chin states, and in
Magway, Ayeyarwaddy, and western Bago divisions.
A planned third round will provide repeat vaccinations to children in the
same regions, the report said.
The Burmese junta declared the country free of polio in 2000. Polio is
spread when people, mainly children under five, come into contact with
the feces of those with the virus, often through water.
The virus attacks the central nervous system, causing paralysis, muscular
atrophy and deformation and, in some cases, death.
Vaccines developed in 1955 by Jonas Salk and in 1962 by Albert Sabin are
credited with reducing of the annual number of polio cases from many
hundreds of thousands to around 1,000.
Original reporting by Kyaw Min Htun for RFA’s Burmese service. Burmese
service director: Nancy Shwe. Additional reporting by David Beasley in
Washington. Produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han.
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&#169;
2007 Radio Free Asia
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<h4>
Original reporting in Burmese
</h4>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="/burmese/news/Polio_Outbreak_in_Burma-20070509.html">
Burmese service report on Polio outbreak
</a>
</li>
</ul>
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<h4>
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Burmese Protester Interrogated For Two Days
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<div class="borderbox" class="linklist">
<h4>
On the Web
</h4>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burma" title="Wikipedia - About
Burma">
Wikipedia - About Burma
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a
href="http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1446512"
title="In English">
American Journal of Public Health on polio in Southeast Asia
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a
href="http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS01406736000287
49/fulltext" title="In English">
The Lancet on polio in Laos
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.who.int/countries/mmr/en/" title="In English">
WHO on Burma
</a>
</li>
<li>
<a href="http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/myanmar.html" title="In
English">
UNICEF on Burma
</a>
</li>
</ul>
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<h4>
Blog: RFA Unplugged
</h4>
<ul>
<li>
<a href="http://rfaunplugged.wordpress.com" title="">
RFA Unplugged
</a>
</li>
</ul>
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