For the first time in five years, a case of polio was recorded in Africa, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced.
Health authorities in Malawi have declared an outbreak of polio type 1, as a case was recorded in the capital Lilongwe, according to a WHO statement.
A three-year-old girl was infected with polio.
Laboratory analyzes showed the strain in Malawi to be the same as the one found in Pakistan, the Malawi Ministry of Health said.
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Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only two countries in the world where polio is an endemic disease.
"The discovery of this disease outside the two countries where it is endemic, Pakistan and Afghanistan, causes serious concern.
This news shows that it is important to put polio vaccination at the top of the priority list," said the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, as reported by Reuters.
The WHO said that the countries of the African continent could very quickly launch a joint action in response to the fight against the spread of the disease.
The previous case of polio in Africa was recorded in 2016 in the Nigerian state of Borno.
In August 2020, the WHO announced that there is no more polio in Africa.
Caused by the wild polio virus, poliomyelitis is an infectious disease that mainly affects children under the age of five, attacks the bone marrow and can cause irreversible paralysis and death when it affects the chest muscles.
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