AKIPRESS.COM - The spread of polio in countries where it was once eradicated is an “extraordinary event” and unless an international coordinated response is urgently put in place, the preventable disease will resurge, the United Nations health agency today warned.

Members of the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Emergency Committee meeting on Monday in Geneva unanimously agreed that the over-riding priority for all polio-infected countries must be to interrupt wild polio-virus transmission within their borders “as rapidly as possible”. Supplementary immunization campaigns with oral polio-virus vaccine (OPV), virus surveillance, and routine immunization are among the main ways to interrupt transmission, the UN News Centre reported.

Cameroon, Pakistan and Syria pose the greatest risk of exporting the virus to other countries and should ensure that all residents and long-term visitors should be vaccinated before travelling and provided with a proof of vaccination, according to a statement from the WHO.

The Committee also identified countries where the wild poliovirus is active but currently not being transmitted to neighbouring countries. That group includes Afghanistan, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, Iraq, Israel, Somalia and Nigeria.