The World Health Organisation has said that citizens of countries where polio has yet to be totally eradicated will now be tested before travelling abroad.



The 10 countries now affected by the new wild polio virus, according to a WHO report, include Ethiopia, Israel, Nigeria, Somalia, Pakistan, Syria, Cameroon, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Equatorial Guinea.



The WHO official in charge of polio eradication, Dr. Bruce Aylward, said during a telephone news conference that citizens and long-term residents of the affected countries, who travel abroad, should be vaccinated before they leave and should carry an internationally-recognised certificate as proof.



An emergency committee convened by the organisation was said to have announced in Geneva that three countries — Pakistan, Syria and Cameroon — had allowed the virus to spread and that they should take extraordinary measures to combat it, including making sure that all children in those countries are inoculated or reinoculated.



Though the disease primarily strikes children under six, the committee said there was an ‘increasing evidence that adult travellers contributed’ to the recent spread of polio from Pakistan to Afghanistan, Syria to Iraq, and Cameroon to Equatorial Guinea between January and April.



The organisation said three-fifth of the new cases in 2013 were in regions that had previously been free of polio, describing this as a consequence of conflict and the interruption of vaccination campaigns.



“It can become endemic in the entire world if we do not complete the eradication of this disease,” Aylward said



via nigerianeye
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