The World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday that it had detected a case of the crippling polio virus in Indonesia, indicating that an outbreak rooted in Africa has leapt the Indian Ocean.
The case, affecting a 20-month-old girl on Java, is the first polio infection in Indonesia in nine years, according to Bardan Rana, a medical officer with the UN agency.
Indonesian health officials have launched an immunization drive targeting 5 million children to prevent the spread of the virus which may have been transported from Nigeria via Saudi Arabia.
"There has been a case in Indonesia, the lab has confirmed it. The sequencing has shown that the case was imported and matches strains of the virus found in Saudi Arabia," Rana said.
The virus is believed to have been carried to Saudi Arabia by Muslim pilgrims heading to Mecca. It may have been passed on to Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim-populated country, in the same way or through migrant workers.
"There are a lot of ports of entry and a lot of people working in the Middle East. It's not definite, but this is the most likely route," Rana said.
Polio remains endemic in only six countries, including Afghanistan, Egypt, India, Niger, Nigeria and Pakistan, with vaccination programs driving down the number of cases from 350,000 in 1988 to 1,243 last year.
But a handful of African and Middle Eastern nations have reported being reinfected following a boycott last year on polio vaccines in Nigeria, prompted by radical clerics claiming it had been contaminated by US agents.
Nigeria restarted vaccinations last July after an 11-month hiatus, but the disease has resurfaced in Benin, Chad, Cameroon, Botswana, Burkino Faso, Central African Republic, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Sudan, Togo and Yemen.
Rana said the Indonesian government has begun a major vaccination campaign in the densely populated region of Sukabumi in West Java province where the case was detected on April 21 and confirmed six days later.
"All children under the age of five are being immunized by teams going house-to-house in four surrounding villages. Surveillance has been intensified and spread to a much wider area," he said.
Health ministry secretary-general Umar Fahmi said two other suspected cases had been found in Sukabumi and tests were being carried out.
"We are still waiting for the lab test results," he said.
He said more than 4,000 children had been immunized and 115 children who had contact with the infected child had been identified.
"We are still trying to ascertain, but I have received a report that 13 of them were positive but did not show symptoms because they have immunity," he said.
Rana said that although there was resistance to immunization in many Muslim countries because of fears that the vaccine could lead to impotency, there were few refusals in Indonesia.
Polio is a waterborne virus that usually affects infants and young children, causing paralysis, withered muscles and sometimes death. There is no cure.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
Packed crowds in India celebrating their cricket team’s victory ended in a deadly stampede on Wednesday, with 11 mainly young fans crushed to death, the local state’s chief minister said. Joyous cricket fans had come out to celebrate and welcome home their heroes, Royal Challengers Bengaluru, after they beat Punjab Kings in a roller-coaster Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket final on Tuesday night. However, the euphoria of the vast crowds in the southern tech city of Bengaluru ended in disaster, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra calling it “absolutely heartrending.” Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said most of the deceased are young, with 11 dead
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a