The vaccine-linked virus was detected in 3 children and 5 wastewater samples
Photo: iStock A four-year-old child in Isale district of western Burundi, along with two other children he was in contact with, was diagnosed with vaccine-linked polio, according to the health officials of Burundi.
Poliovirus type 2 was also confirmed in five samples from environmental surveillance of wastewater from the region, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
Based on these eight samples found with the virus, Burundi’s health authorities declared an outbreak in the landlocked east-African country — its first in 30 years.
The type 2 infection can occur when the weakened strain of the virus contained in the oral polio vaccine, circulates among under-immunised populations for a long period, WHO noted in a press statement.
Polio can cause acute flaccid paralysis — the acute onset of weakness or paralysis with reduced muscle tone in children, according to the United Nations health agency.
The last time children in Burundi were vaccinated against polio was in 2016, but it did not have statistics on how many were reached, news agency Associated Press (AP) quoted WHO as saying.
WHO considered the country’s immunity against polio to be “very low”, according to an AP report.
“Circulating poliovirus type 2 is the most prevalent form of polio in Africa and outbreaks of this type of poliovirus are the highest reported in the region, with more than 400 cases reported in 14 countries in 2022,” according to the United Nations health agency.
The vaccine-linked virus was also found in six children in the Democratic Republic of Congo's eastern Tanganyika and South Kivu provinces, according to the international news agency Reuters.
Read more: Global spread of vaccine-derived polio still a high risk: WHO
The Burundian government is planning a polio vaccine campaign in the coming weeks for children up to 7 years of age, according to WHO, Burundi.
It is also collecting more samples and considering the idea of opening more environmental surveillance sites for stronger monitoring as well as performing risk assessment to determine the extent of the outbreak, WHO noted.
Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO regional director for Africa, lauded the government for its effective disease surveillance. “Polio is highly infectious and timely action is critical in protecting children through effective vaccination,” he said.
There is no treatment for the disease that mostly affects children under the age of five. The four-dose vaccines are, thus, the best protection.
But the oral vaccine can also cause polio in about two to four children per 2 million dose, according to the story in AP.
In recent years, the oral polio vaccine has caused far more cases of polio than the wild polio virus, Maria Cheng, the author of the story, noted. “Last year, cases linked to the oral vaccine turned up in rich countries including Britain, Israel and the US for the first time in years,” she observed.
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