Representatives of World Health Organization (WHO) staff across the Eastern Mediterranean Region acknowledged the difficulties faced at the level of individual countries in delivering programs and identified new tactics to focus efforts on stopping transmission in the coming months.
During a three-day meeting in the Omani capital, Muscat, key WHO staff dedicated to the global fight to eradicate polio ended plans to shut down outbreaks in the Middle East and the Horn of Africa and to stop transmission of the crippling and potentially deadly disease in the endemic countries Afghanistan and Pakistan.
“We are facing a nine-month period of intensified activity and in all of our zones of operation and we are planning how best we can support the implementation of programs to effectively put a stop to polio,” said WHO’s Manager of Polio Eradication and Emergency Support in the region Chris Maher.
The group of more than 40 WHO officials, mostly medical staff, identified a number of actions to prioritize operational activities targeting high-risk populations in infected and at-risk countries.
The WHO experts also discussed such issues as strengthening routine immunization, the introduction of the injectable polio vaccine (IPV), surveillance and data, risk assessment, access to hard-to-reach areas and populations, communications and advocacy, among other topics.