30 years after the last recorded cases, polio is making a comeback in Mozambique. Authorities said they detected a case in a child in Tete province in the northeast of the country.
The announcement comes three months after neighboring Malawi reported a similar infection. The latter had led to the establishment of a vaccination campaign in this region of southern Africa. According to the WHO, 4.2 million children have since been vaccinated.
In 2020, the WHO declared poliomyelitis “eradicated” from the African continent after an absence of cases for four consecutive years.
Poliomyelitis is a viral disease that mainly affects children under the age of five. It attacks the nervous system and can lead to irreversible paralysis or even death.
Malawi and four of its neighbours, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, want to vaccinate 23 million children in the coming weeks.