Congo

Status: imported poliovirus

The Republic of Congo is one of the countries in the “wild poliovirus importation belt” – a band of countries stretching from west Africa to central Africa and the Horn of Africa, which are re-infected with poliovirus; in this case, the virus is related to that which has re-established transmission in Angola. The immediate priority is to stop all active outbreaks using mop-up campaigns with monovalent oral polio vaccine in the infected areas, combined with a series of large-scale, synchronized supplementary immunization activities across most of the “importation belt” countries to protect against further importations.

Strategy

Polio this week in Congo

• No new cases were reported in the past week. Both countries have only reported one case each this year (both WPV1). This most recent case in the Republic of Congo was reported with onset of paralysis on 22 January, and the case in Gabon had onset of paralysis on 15 January.