The World Health Organisation has confirmed that 17 children have been impacted by an outbreak of the vaccine-related virus.
Responding to the announcement, Chairman of RI’s Polio Plus Committee, RI Past Vice President Mike McGovern said it is important to remind Rotarians that the outbreak in Syria involves vaccine derived cases, not wild polio virus – and that such cases are not included in the official count which relates to the wild polio virus.
Official count for Wild Polio Virus now stands at six following one recent case in Pakistan. In 2017 there have been four cases in Afghanistan and two in Pakistan.
The World Health Organisation and its PolioPlus partners are confident the situation in Syria is under control with planning underway to conduct two special rounds of immunisation in early July to target type 2 polio and immunise 328,000 children under the age of five.