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stormwyrm writes:

The BBC reports that a small outbreak of polio has been confirmed in Papua New Guinea, eighteen years after the disease was declared eradicated in the country.

"We are deeply concerned about this polio case in Papua New Guinea, and the fact that the virus is circulating," said Pascoe Kase, Papua New Guinea's heath secretary.

"Our immediate priority is to respond and prevent more children from being infected."

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said at the end of last week that the same virus that was found in the six-year-old boy was also found in samples taken from two healthy children in the same community, the WHO said. This means the virus is circulating in the community, representing an outbreak, it added. Immediate steps to stop the spread of the highly contagious disease include large-scale immunisation campaigns and strengthening surveillance systems that help detect it early.

Papua New Guinea has not had a case of wild poliovirus since 1996, and the country was certified as polio-free in 2000 along with the rest of the WHO Western Pacific Region.

Today, despite the outbreak, the disease remains endemic only in Nigeria, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, where conspiracy theories about the vaccine (and not all of them are completely unfounded) hamper eradication efforts. Dr. Steven Novella has an article discussing the outbreak in more depth.

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