Epidemic: Health ministers from Africa, where a Nigerian-centred polio epidemic is raging, have vowed to halt the spread of the crippling disease this year.
This follows a World Health Organisation (WHO) gathering of the ministers earlier this month with a view to co-ordinate a campaign to wipe out polio in the region.
At least five rounds of national campaigns to vaccinate children under five years against the highly infectious disease will be held in the continent's eight hardest hit countries - Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Niger, Nigeria and Sudan.
"Despite the setbacks, all the evidence looks promising for stopping polio transmission this year," the ministers said in a joint statement.
The ministers aim to stop polio transmission by the end of 2005, despite a 50 per cent rise in global cases last year to 1,185, with Africa accounting for all the increase.
Polio, which mainly affects children under the age of five, is carried by a virus and can cause irreversible total paralysis in a matter of hours. An international campaign - launched in 1988 when 350,000 cases were reported - was dealt a severe blow in 2003 when Nigeria's Kano state banned vaccines because Muslim elders said they were part of a Western plot to spread HIV and infertility.
Immunisation resumed last July but the 10-month ban helped the virus reach "epidemic proportion" in Nigeria and a dozen countries that had previously eradicated it, WHO said.
Nigerian health minister Eyitayo Lambo said the number of regions with polio had fallen to 16 from a peak of 30. "We are determined to halt transmission. Given the quality of immunisation, commitment, resources and collaboration, I am sure we will halt it," he said.
The head of the WHO's polio eradication programme said there were fears of outbreaks in the Gulf peninsula after a case had surfaced in Saudi Arabia.
"A case made its way from Sudan through Chad to Saudi Arabia two weeks ago," David Heymann said. "We fear transmission to Yemen and other parts of the Arab peninsula where there are very low levels of vaccination. It's very important to stop transmission."
Immunisation was still difficult in the war-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur, he added.Sudan, which had been free of polio for three years, had 112 confirmed cases last year. Ivory Coast, where civil war erupted after a failed coup in 2002, is of growing concern with 16 cases in 2004 after none the previous year.