Report of the Regional Director 21 - Polio
Report of the Regional Director - 2021 - Polio
Polio transition in the
WHO African Region
In an historic public health milestone, the WHO African Region was certified free of wild poliovirus on 25 August 2020. This is the second virus to have been eradicated from the Region after smallpox more than 40 years ago.
To end all forms of polio, the Region is now fighting outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2). Twenty-one African countries2 reported these outbreaks in 2020, but response activities were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. With vaccination campaigns resuming in July 2020, forty-two million children have been vaccinated against this disease. This success has led to only nine countries3 reporting outbreaks of cVDPV2 so far in 2021, with 26 cases this year compared to 534 in 2020.
In November 2020, WHO listed novel oral polio vaccine type 2 (nOPV2) for emergency use for cVDPV2 outbreak response. Benin, Liberia, Nigeria, Congo, Sierra Leone and more countries are preparing to use nOPV2 as the vaccine of choice for cVDPV2 outbreak response. So far, more than 11 million children have been vaccinated in 2021 with nOPV2 in these five countries.
All seven priority African countries4 for polio transition have plans to guide this process endorsed by their national interagency coordination committees (ICCs). WHO is providing support to review timelines, resources for implementation and monitoring and evaluation frameworks to advance the implementation of these plans. As part of “polio transition-in-action” during the COVID-19 pandemic, polio-funded staff served as front-line workers.
Polio staff also play integral roles in routine immunization and response to other outbreaks, such as yellow fever, cholera and meningitis. The polio programme’s unparalleled footprint also serves as an entry point to increase access to micronutrient supplements, deworming and treatment for diarrhoea, and messaging on salt iodization and the determinants of health, particularly in rural communities.
In November 2020, WHO was notified that there will be no Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) financial support to the African Region except for polio outbreak response and the polio laboratory network. In March 2021, the remaining 529 GPEI-funded staff in the African Region were notified that their positions would be terminated by December 2021.
The main challenge to maintaining post-eradication activities like surveillance, stopping the current cVDPV2 outbreaks, and ensuring timely implementation of national polio transition plans is inadequate funding. All efforts should be made to mobilize resources to ensure the monumental progress made against polio over the past 25 years is sustained.
- 61 million with mOPV vaccine in 2020 and 24 million with nOPV2 in 2021
- Angola, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Nigeria, Niger, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, Togo and Zambia.
- Benin, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Liberia, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and South Sudan.
- Angola, Cameroon, Chad, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Sudan.