According to an announcement made on Sept. 2 by the World Health Organization (WHO), Two polio cases have been confirmed in western Ukraine. This new outbreak of polio is the first to be recorded in Europe since the year 2010.
A 4-year-old child and a ten-month-old baby were diagnosed with the polio virus in Ukraine's southwestern Zakarpattya region. European Union member states and the polio outbreak is worrying the neighboring states. The polio cases were reported after paralysis associated with the disease was detected, according to a declaration of the Ukrainian health ministry made on Tuesday, Sept 1.
Oliver Rosenbauer, WHO spokesperson, told AFP that this is the first polio case in Europe since the year 2010. He added that the last case of polio recorded previously in Ukraine date from 1996. The WHO declared that the current two cases are tied to a different type of virus than the one responsible for the outbreak reported in 2010.
According to WHO spokeswoman Cristiana Salvi, the present Ukrainian outbreak counting two cases in two children from the Zakarpattya region is "due to circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) type 1".
Salvi added that because of low vaccination coverage, this strain could circulate in a community and continued to find susceptible victims. Igor Pereginets, Ukrainian deputy health minister, told AFP on Wednesday that a similar polio virus was detected last year. Ukrainian children are at risk of contracting the virus due to inadequate vaccination. According to statistics provided by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, only half of them are fully immunized against polio.
In its statement released Tuesday, the WHO declared that it believes there is no high risk of international spread from Ukraine, however, it noted the infected region shared borders with Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania. European Union health officials are worried that in case the disease would spread over the Ukrainian borders into one of the European states, it could transform in a full-stage epidemics in the EU. The WHO Regional Office for Europe announced that it had been notified of the cases late last month and it would try helping Ukrainian authorities to fight the virus.
