Health investigates case of syndrome in Pará that may have been caused by polio

The Ministry of Health received the notification of a case of acute flaccid paralysis of a child in the municipality of Santo Antônio do Tauá (PA). THE CNN found that, according to information passed on by the Pará State Health Department on Wednesday (5), it may be a case of poliomyelitis caused by the circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus.

Vaccine-derived circulating poliovirus is sometimes found in populations that have not been fully vaccinated. They are called “vaccine derivatives” because they are a modified form of a strain originally contained in the oral polio vaccine (OPV). OPV contains a live but weakened form of the poliovirus.

Acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) is a clinical syndrome that in some cases brings symptoms such as weakness in the legs, motor difficulty, changes in depolarization that generate muscle spasms and can be accompanied by muscle atrophy. Among its causes are polio.

The National Campaign for Vaccination against Poliomyelitis finds it difficult to reach the established target of at least 95% of the child population under 5 years old.

The disease, also called infantile paralysis, has been eradicated in the country since 1994, but the low vaccination coverage in recent years worries specialists. According to the Ministry of Health, vaccination coverage is around 60%.

According to reports made to CNN , the Pará Health Department notified the Ministry of Health, which should send a Health Surveillance team to the State to investigate the case. According to the clinical report sent to the Federal Ministry, to which the CNN had access, the patient is a 3-year-old child who has a record of two doses of the oral polio vaccine (OPV), the first dose on June 7, 2021 and the second on August 20 of this year, not including inactivated polio vaccine registry. That is, the child did not have the complete vaccination schedule for the disease.

According to the report, the child developed symptoms one day after the second dose of the vaccine, developing an acute flaccid paralysis with decreased muscle strength in the left leg. According to the test order report, malnutrition and very short stature were reported.

THE CNN contacted the Ministry of Health, which informed that it should comment soon.

Learn more about the disease

According to the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) –the international agency specializing in public health in the Americas–, polio, commonly called polio, is a highly contagious disease caused by wild poliovirus.

Although registered in Brazil since the end of the 19th century, according to the Ministry of Health, polio had been eradicated in the national territory for three decades. The last case was detected in 1989 in the city of Souza, in Paraíba.

Ended on September 30, the National Vaccination Campaign against Poliomyelitis and Multivaccination was extended by the Ministry of Health. So far, according to data from the LocalizaSUS platform, vaccination coverage for children is 61.9%.

With results presented since 2016 below the target of immunizing 95% of the target audience (14.3 million children under 5 years old), experts already feared the possibility of the virus reintroduction in the country.

In an interview with CNN at the end of September, the president of the Brazilian Society of Immunizations (SBIm), Juarez Cunha, stated that the risk of the return of infantile paralysis in Brazil is considered high.

(Jose Brito collaborated)

Source: CNN Brasil

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