COVID-19 undermines polio efforts

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This article is supported through Global Health Strategies.

The public fitness measures followed to curb COVID-19 have threatened polio elimination efforts, experts say.

[YAOUNDE] The strategies followed in 2020 to combat COVID-19 around the world have had an effect on the immunization regimen against polio and even measles.

In 2020, approximately 7. 7 million young people received the first dose of life-saving diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles and polio vaccines as a result of COVID-19 lockdown measures, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) in an article published in 2021.

According to the WHO, vaccines lost in Africa compared to last year increased by about ten percent due to fitness disruption due to the pandemic.

“In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was officially declared, all service delivery in countries was suspended, adding polio campaigns and combating other vaccine-preventable diseases [such as measles and yellow fever],” Modjirom Ndoutabe, polio program coordinator. at the WHO Regional Office for Africa, he told SciDev. Net.

“Countries have continued to isolate poliovirus, whether from selected youth or from the environment. In countries affected by COVID-19 and polio outbreaks, we have noticed that vaccine responses have been slow in 2020 and 2021, allowing the virus to circulate intensely in the African region,” he added.

In Cameroon, for example, the pandemic era was marked by a resurgence of measles and polio.

“Measles has from 44 fitness districts in 2019 to 80 districts in 2020,” said Shalom Tchokfe Ndoula, permanent secretary of the Expanded Programme on Immunization in Cameroon.

“In 2021, the reaction measures put in place have reduced this number to 31. In 2022, however, the number skyrocketed and some 60 fitness districts were affected. “

Ndoula said: “Cameroon has from 4 cases of poliovirus in 2019 to 16 cases in 2020. “”sign of inadequate immunity within communities”.

The similar scenario in Senegal, where vaccination campaigns were interrupted due to public fitness measures, adding school closures, was put in position to curb the spread of covid-19. These measures, Ousseynou Badiane, coordinator of the Expanded Programme on Immunization in Cameroon, have led to a drop in attendance at fitness facilities.

“Health was almost busy fighting COVID-19 to the point that other systems were neglected,” Ousseynou said.

In Guinea, the years before covid-19 had a higher vaccination policy than the virusArray

“We analyzed vaccination data from the COVID-19 era to the 2018 or 2019 era, we learned that there is a slight minimum in vaccination coverage,” says Mamadou Dian Bah, head of the plan development and mobilization branch at Expander’s vaccination program in Guinea.

Rumors and fake news about COVID-19 vaccination have also caused many families to refuse to vaccinate children.

Ndoula told SciDev. Net that vaccination campaigns also suffered a setback. “Due to misinformation, vaccination campaigns have encountered unusual difficulties, adding to the refusals to get vaccinated.

“The main obstacles are rumors that COVID-19 vaccines will be administered under the cloak of normal vaccination campaigns, young people will be quietly vaccinated in opposition to COVID-19, destructive ingredients will be brought through vaccination campaigns, and young people will be sterilized,” he said. said. said.

Ousseynou Badiane, coordinator of Senegal’s expanded programme on immunization, also said immunization systems have suffered from fake news and that this has led to vaccine hesitancy.

“When we vaccinated against COVID-19, there were many other people who didn’t need to be vaccinated unlike other genes (viruses), especially those in babies,” Ousseynou told SciDev. Net.

He said other people are starting to think that other vaccines are a masked way to deliver the COVID-19 vaccine to children. They think COVID-19 vaccines were dangerous.

Ousseynou added that vaccination campaigns against yellow fever, polio campaigns and a targeted measles campaign organized by COVID-19 have been affected and that there have been many vaccine rejections.

“Fake news has had an impact, although not very significant, on those campaigns because we have recorded many cases of rejection of those campaigns,” he said.

In the midst of the pandemic, WHO has been willing to “interpersonal communication to inspire parents to vaccinate their children against polio and measles,” said Modjirom Ndoutabe.

It is this communication strategy that has enabled Guinea to mitigate the impact of COVID-19 on the immunization regime and maintain the immunization policy “at an appropriate level,” Mamadou Dian Bah told SciDev. Net.

For Senegal, Ousseynou says the expanded programme on immunization has followed “corrective measures” to mitigate the pandemic’s impact on the health system.

“We’ve ramped up vaccination a little bit and brought it to acceptable levels,” he said.

In Cameroon, according to Ndoula, the fitness government has developed rules that help fitness staff know how to continue offering immunization while protecting themselves and others from COVID-19.

Health staff now also know how to treat parents well, Ndoula said.

Other methods, such as cell phone campaigns, have been arranged in urban spaces “to raise awareness about vaccination and the dangers faced by unvaccinated children,” he said.

Ndoula added that complex methods have been put in place in undervaccinated communities to bring the vaccination offer closer to populations.

“These complex methods come with door-to-door campaigns and intensified vaccination activities in some regions and districts of the country to catch up with young people who did not receive their vaccine doses,” Ndoula explained.

In 2022, WHO launched response plans “that have enabled a dozen countries to prevent the flow of all polioviruses,” says Modjirom Ndoutabe, polio programme coordinator at WHO’s Regional Office for Africa in SciDev. Net.

However, there is still the threat of the spread of these infectious diseases, especially if the viruses circulate in spaces where young people are vaccinated.

Modjirom said strengthening communication is key to allowing parents to adopt various projects to eliminate or prevent diseases with vaccines.

“Routine vaccination will have to be reinforced by carrying out built-in multiantigen mini-campaigns,” he recommends.

Badiane says the regime’s vaccines will have to be a priority.

“We were almost in the late stages of polio eradication; We were moving towards measles elimination. . . It is thanks to vaccination that we have had those achievements. To prevent these diseases from returning, the concentrate will have to be in the vaccination regimen,” he said.

Ndoula added that providing information to others about vaccination and immunization schedules for children aged 0 to 23 months could contribute to the eradication of polio and measles.

He recommends adapting fitness to the way of life of network members.

“Health facilities will have to adapt to community behavior, even if it means providing work schedules at vaccination centers so that all young people have the possibility to get their vaccine doses,” he added.

This work produced through the French workplace for sub-Saharan Africa in SciDev. Net.

This article was supported by Global Health Strategies (GHS), an organization that uses advocacy, communication, and policy research for global health and wellness.

This article was originally published on SciDev. Net. Read the original article.

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