Africa's Polio Efforts Aiding Bird Flu Fight

This article discusses how Africa's response to the first appearance of H5N1 avian influenza (avian flu or bird flu) on the African continent may be aided by ongoing campaigns to fight polio. In Nigeria, the polio campaign is being done by thousands of vaccinators and surveillance officers equipped with maps that record every house in every village and who are able to move diagnostic specimens from patient to laboratory quickly and safely. According to the article, this extensive public health infrastructure is now mobilising against avian flu.

A four-day campaign to vaccinate 40 million Nigerian children is being used to deliver a message to thousands of village leaders that people should not touch or eat sick chickens. More elaborate activities may begin later. "The polio organization has offered to use all its network to deliver information, and also for surveillance and case detection. We are going to support all kinds of activities to mitigate the impact of avian flu," said Mohammed Belhocine, the World Health Organization's representative in Nigeria. Immediately after H5N1 was detected, the plan was to have the thousands of vaccinators going house to house with the oral polio vaccine deliver the message that people should not touch or eat ailing chickens. However, that plan was rejected when Nigerian health officials concluded that vaccinators would not be able to answer questions about bird flu. Instead, field supervisors are giving the chicken-avoidance message to village leaders and having them decide the best way to disseminate it.

According to the article, this is not the first time that polio eradication the infrastructure and networks have helped to support other health initiatives. In recent years, polio teams have helped rescue earthquake survivors in Pakistan, investigate a lethal outbreak of Marburg virus in Angola, find victims of the rare Crimean-Congo fever in Afghanistan, and deliver malaria-preventing mosquito nets to mothers in Niger.