Une épidémie de polio venue de Syrie frappe l’Irak. La maladie y avait été éradiquée, elle concerne des dizaines de milliers d’enfants - NYT
▻http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/08/world/middleeast/polio-spreads-from-syria-to-iraq-causing-worries.html?_r=0
Syria’s polio outbreak has now officially spread to Iraq, the first neighbor of the war-ravaged country to be hit by the crippling virus despite an ambitious Middle East inoculation effort, and global health officials warned Monday that dozens of vulnerable Iraqi children could potentially be infected.
The transmission of polio, a highly contagious disease that primarily afflicts children younger than 5 and can lead to partial and sometimes fatal paralysis, reflects one of the most insidious effects of the three-year-old Syria conflict, which has sent millions of refugees across the country’s borders and severely undermined its public health system.
For Iraq, the outbreak is the first time in 14 years that polio has appeared; the disease was absent even during the 2003-2011 war that began with the American-led invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.
(...)
Iraq has an estimated five million children under the age of 5. While estimates vary on the number of infections for every confirmed case, and not all children develop symptoms, Mr. Maher said, “in all likelihood it would be dozens — you’ve got to assume there’s some extension of the transmission.”
The W.H.O. and Unicef said in a joint statement on Sunday that Iraq’s expedited polio response was part of a broader vaccination effort in the region, with the goal of reaching more than 20 million children this week. Lebanon and Turkey will participate later this month, and Jordan and the Palestinian territories will be part of future vaccination rounds, said Juliette S. Touma, a spokeswoman for Unicef’s regional office in Amman, Jordan.
