Over a million children vaccinated against polio in southern Malawi

In a classroom in southern Malawi, children sat in rows on the floor earlier this week as a health worker moved among them administering an oral vaccine that will protect them against polio.

They are some of the 1.3 million children that are being vaccinated in a new campaign that got underway on Wednesday.

It comes following the detection of a new polio case in late January and is another reminder that the world still hasn’t managed to eradicate this ancient disease.

This despite a concerted effort for more than 35 years by the World Health Organization and its partners.

The outbreak in Malawi is linked to a vaccine-derived type 2 poliovirus detected in the environment and an unvaccinated 7-year-old child.

Under WHO regulations, Malawi was required to declare an outbreak on confirming the polio virus traces.

These strains of poliovirus emerge in communities with low immunisation rates and can cause outbreaks in areas free of wild polio.

The UN agency supported the Ministry of Health to coordinate the complex operational logistics required for a rapid, region-wide vaccination drive.

Polio is a highly contagious, infectious disease which attacks the nervous system and can lead to permanent paralysis or death, primarily in children under five.

It spreads through faeces and contaminated water and food and, while there is no cure, it is entirely preventable through vaccination.

The last reported case of wild poliovirus in Malawi was in 2022 and was genetically linked to a strain identified in Pakistan.

In the early 20th century, polio caused fear in communities across the world and paralysed hundreds of thousands of children annually before the advent of vaccines in the 1950s.