Polio alarm gets province into gear

By EREBIRI ZURENUOC
WORK is already under way to contain and create awareness on the polio outbreak in Morobe, provincial health programme adviser Micah Yawing says.
He said the division was doing everything to make sure the first case detected in early April was contained.
“The first case in Lae, which was detected at Angau Hospital is very serious,” Yawing said. “For a virus like polio, one case is an outbreak.
“PNG declared its eradication 18 years ago.
“This is the first case after eradication.”
Yawing said the support of the National Department of Health, World Health Organisation (WHO) and Unicef to work in partnership with Morobe was timely.
“We have a good support now, so all children must be immunised,” he said. “Right now, the target groups are children under one year.
“Trainings are going on now to build capacity for health staff to know what role they will play in terms of immunisation.”
Yawing said training was already underway in Lae and Huon
Gulf districts with seven areas to follow.
He said the operational plan now was to get health workers out and make sure all children under 12 months were immunised.
“Health is everybody’s business,” Yawing said.
“Families and individuals in communities must be aware.
“They must take their children for immunisation.
“That one case could spread.
“We need to make sure our vaccine supplies from our donors are ready, so our teams can go to every community and settlement in Lae to conduct mass immunisation.
“We thank our donors for the capacity-building training, funding, technical support and even morale support to our teams to carry out immunisation.”
The UN has launched a response effort to contain the outbreak following the announcement by the national Government confirming the presence of vaccine-derived poliovirus in Morobe .