http://www.thespec.com/By Simeon Bennett
GENEVA Polio, the crippling virus driven to the brink of extinction, could return to Europe as regional conflicts undermine a $10-billion eradication campaign.
The United Nations says a massive campaign to vaccinate children in the Middle East has begun after the first cases in 14 years were confirmed in northeastern Syria last week. Red Crescent and government health workers in Syria and neighbouring countries aim to immunize 20 million children.
Polio's reappearance raises the risk that the virus will hitch a ride on unsuspecting refugees fleeing the country and return to areas, including Europe, that have been polio-free for decades, according to a letter published in the The Lancet medical journal Friday.
"Polio is making a comeback," said Martin Eichner, a professor at the University of Tuebingen who co-authored the letter to The Lancet. Eichner and a German colleague warned that the vaccine used in the United States and Europe offers only partial protection against infection and called for heightened screening of sewage systems near refugee settlements in Turkey and Jordan. Syrian war refugees, moreover, have begun arriving in Western Europe, including Sweden and Germany.
UNICEF says 10 children have so far been paralyzed by the virus and it poses a risk to hundreds of thousands of children across the region.
It says preliminary evidence indicates that the strain in Syria is of Pakistani origin and is similar to one found in sewage samples in Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories.
Polio has been eradicated in most countries but remains endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.
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