BY GRACE AUKA SALMANG
THE polio outbreak in Papua New Guinea is considered the most explosive in the last 20 years and is also the most expensive ongoing response operations in the world, according to World Health Organisation (WHO).
WHO Country Representative in PNG Dr Luo Dapeng made this known saying in 2018 the global spotlight was put on PNG when the government declared a polio outbreak after 18 years polio free.
He said this yesterday when speaking at the official launch of the third round of the polio national immunisation day for the ongoing polio outbreak emergency response in the country.
“We have the biggest polio outbreak in terms of number of cases and affected provinces detected in such short time. By the end of 2018, we have confirmed 26 cases in nine provinces.” He said last year, five rounds of polio campaign was conducted where more than 3.2 million children were vaccinated under the age of 15 where the government mobilised more than 12,000 polio workers all over the country. He said for WHO, 23 emergency operations centres were established in all provinces and mobilised more than 100 experts from all over the world. We trained surveillance officers in all provinces in order to identify any polio case.
“We hired cars, boats, helicopters and many transportation possible to reach children and protect them from polio.
“These actions made this response operation the most expensive in the world, many times more expensive than the cost of improving the coverage of our immunisation.”