Transcript
LUO DAPENG: As you know the immunisation coverage in Papua New Guinea is low. Last five to ten years. Which means a lot of children are susceptible. They tend to be infected if they have contact with the polio virus. Only a small proportion of children who are infected have symptoms, polio like symptoms. So far there are acute paralysis cases, about 65 cases. I think there is evidence as we go around there will be more cases [found] but we are glad recent cases suggest the system is working.
DON WISEMAN: Why has it re-emerged now?
LD: As I said because the country has immunisations consistently low for the last five years to ten years, and a lot of children have no immunity.
DW: They have no immunity because the immunisation programme hasn't been happening properly.
LD: yes
DW: So that could apply across the country and be affecting hundreds of thousands, couldn't it?
LD: No I don't foresee that but I think we may find more cases. However with the intervention ongoing - we have already had first intervention with supplementary polio vaccine in Morobe, Madang, East Highlands provinces, and 300,000 children already vaccinated. We are going to do a second round of immunisation in which we will extend the scope or the scale of the intervention. So the second round of the intervention will cover six Highlands Provinces plus Morobee and Madang. About 700,000 children under 5 years will be immunised, from 20th August till the 9th September.
DW: If there's been this hole in the polio vaccination programme then presumably all the other vaccination programmes have also been compromised, have they?
LD: That is a good question. Actually we have been very careful to address this. Complementary with a routine immunisation, when we do the polio vaccination we have a strategy to combine with the routine immunisation. So we hope it has not been undermined.
DW: The people who have got polio now, these new victims, they are children are they?
LD: Yes they are children. For instance the latest one is the girl is 22 months.
DW: What is the age you normally give a polio vaccine?
LD: For this campaign we have targeted all children under 5 years old.
DW: Are they going to have problems? Is this something easily recoverable from once it gets treated?
LD: There are no cures for polio once they get symptomatic. But this disease we can prevent and if the children get immunised they will not get polio.
DW: With the people who are suspected of having the infection are you just keeping an eye on them or are you giving them drugs at this point?
LD: No the suspect cases - we normally call them suspect cases to the general population. For the professionals we call them acute flaccid paralysis [AFP] cases. Many reasons cause symptoms. Polio virus is just one of reasons why children get the paralysis. So we do have a programme to regularly visit the children, for instance, every six months to make assessments of the children.
