Petronella Sibeene
22 October 2008
Namibia has submitted a national polio report to the Africa Regional Certification Commission on Polio Eradication for possible consideration of certification of polio-free status.
Two years ago, the country lost its polio-free status after more than 10 years following an outbreak of the deadly disease.
The status can only be regained depending on whether or not the national report will provide enough evidence to the commission to support the non-existence of wild poliovirus circulating in Namibia.
Minister of Health and Social Services, Dr Richard Kamwi, yesterday said Namibia is among six other countries whose performance on polio eradication will be scrutinised by the commission at its 10th Annual General Meeting underway in Windhoek.
The other countries are Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Liberia, Mali and Madagascar.
The general meeting that started on Monday ends today.
The minister encouraged the commission to indicate areas where Namibia has performed well and areas that needs improvement.
"For any country to meet the global Polio Free Certification Standard, a number of important and stringent criteria must be met. We have 99.9 percent chances that we will be declared polio free again," the minister told New Era.
In May 2006, the first case of wild poliovirus was recorded in the country.
The number of cases continued to rise and by the time it was contained it had claimed at least 32 lives.
World Health Organisation (WHO) Representative in Namibia, Dr Magda Robalo, said in Southern Africa, Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) are experiencing wild poliovirus importations.
And according to Kamwi, the country will have to strengthen its surveillance systems in order to ensure that the virus is not transmitted to Namibia.
He added that the main challenge in the world today is to interrupt wild poliovirus transmission in endemic Afghanistan, India, Nigeria and Pakistan.
"Despite these major challenges, there are still credible opportunities for interruption of the wild poliovirus transmission," added Robalo.
She confirmed that Namibia has been able to maintain the certification standard surveillance for the past six years. The country has also maintained over 80 percent immunisation coverage for even longer period through routine and annual national immunisations.
"We may not rest or become complacent. Improving routine immunisation coverage at national and sub-regional levels remain high priority in our respective countries," said the minister.
He added that Namibia will introduce pentavalent vaccine into its national schedule next year.
"More efficacious vaccines are becoming available globally, which we need to integrate into our national expanded programmes on immunisation so that we can keep on making progress in our quest to reduce infant and child mortality," the minister said.
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