In February, additional unscheduled vaccinations against polio, a disease that causes paralysis in children, began in four regions of the North Caucasus. An unfavorable epidemiological situation has developed in Dagestan, Ingushetia, Karachay-Cherkessia and Chechnya. According to Rospotrebnadzor, these regions have the lowest percentage of people vaccinated against polio in the country. As a result, acute flaccid paralysis began to be recorded here – in most cases it was caused by the polio virus. Is an epidemic possible in Russia, writes “Lenta.ru”.
In the USSR, the last large-scale epidemic of the disease broke out in the middle of the 20th century. According to the material of the publication, 10-13 thousand people fell ill every year in the 1950s. The last major epidemic was recorded in Chechnya in 1996. During this period, vaccines were practically forgotten in the republic due to the war.
It was noted that there is no information on exactly how many cases of polio were recorded after the February epidemic in the Caucasus.
Muminat Dzhabrailova, deputy chief physician responsible for epidemiological problems of the Center of the Republic, said that last year 44 cases of suspected acute limp paralysis were recorded in Dagestan. Patients are children from 3 months to 11 years old.
Some of the children were not vaccinated, some did not comply with the vaccination schedule.
Zalimkhan Omariyev, acting head of Dagestan’s Rospotrebnadzor department, said that a regular polio circulation has developed in the region. The disease is asymptomatic in 90% of cases.
“But every tenth case gives the clinical picture of a neurological lesion in children,” stressed Omariyev.
The newspaper writes that, according to the main version, the possible emergence of polio in Russia is associated with a sharp increase in anti-vaccination sentiment in the Caucasus regions. Thus, the number of unvaccinated children in Dagestan has increased fivefold in the last six years.
Authorities suggest that in reality the number of anti-vaccine objectors may be much higher than reported in the report.
Elena Pokrovskaya, the Karachay-Cherkess representative of Rospotrebnadzor, said that in four regions of the North Caucasus, less than 95% of the population is vaccinated. The material says that such a large drop in vaccination coverage puts the spread of the polio virus at risk of resuming until an epidemic. Another risk factor is the possible import of the virus due to migration flows.
In the Russian Federation, vaccination against polio is included in the National Immunization Program. The vaccine is given at three, four and a half, and six months of a child’s life. Revaccination is done at 18 and 20 months and at six years.
The first two vaccines are made with inactivated polio vaccine, which is given by injection. Subsequent vaccinations – live polio vaccine. Inactivated vaccine is a preparation obtained by completely neutralizing bacteria and viruses while preserving their immunogenic properties. On the one hand, such a vaccine is completely safe, on the other hand, it provides less stable immunity.
Unscheduled vaccination is also possible. It is carried out under the epidemiological risks of some type of infection.
Polio causes damage to the nervous system and is spread by the fecal-oral route, that is, through the feces of an infected person or the consumption of food and water containing the infection.
Biologist Ph.D., a professor at the George Mason Institute (USA). Ancha Baranova explained that polio in its purest form is a disease of dirty hands. She added that the time from the moment of infection to the appearance of the first symptoms takes from three days to a month, often one to two weeks.
The child develops fever, headache, muscle and sore throat, and in rare cases, sudden paralysis.
Baranova noted that most people with polio do not have a stroke. However, in 5% of those infected, the virus can lead to complete or partial paralysis, respiratory failure and even death. Young children are the most vulnerable.
It is stated that the polio virus has coexisted with humanity for thousands of years. It was known in ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt. In 1988, the international Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched. By the middle of the 20th century, this disease was considered as dangerous as the plague.
However, thanks to a global immunization effort reaching almost three billion children, the incidence of polio has decreased by more than 99%.
“The Russian Federation maintains a polio-free status,” said Vladimir Chulanov, Head Free Specialist of the Ministry of Health for Infectious Diseases of the Russian Federation.
One source of possible outbreaks is a wild virus. They practically managed to eliminate it: out of three wild variations in the natural environment, only the first species remained – it was recorded in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
As the coronavirus pandemic has shown, if the virus is alive, it can always spread quite quickly around the world, with the improvement of communication between different parts of the world today.
According to experts from the Russian Association of Pediatricians, in 2022, 21 people in the country were infected with wild polio type 1.
The second source of the disease is vaccine-derived polio viruses. Biologist Antonina Oblasova said the live polio vaccine could “go crazy” if mishandled. For example, a child was given the OPV (oral polio vaccine) vaccine, the vaccine virus began to multiply in the gastrointestinal tract and spread to the environment. The unvaccinated child came into contact with the vaccinated child, the vaccine virus entered his stomach, multiplied there, mixed with the environment. And many circles in a row. The virus mutates at some point, and at some point it can become paralyzed again.
To do this, after vaccination, you must avoid contact with unvaccinated people and follow a number of other rules.
In turn, due to the situation in the Russian Caucasus, Darya Kartasheva-Eberts, a doctoral immunologist at the Pasteur Institute (Paris), urged residents of Dagestan, Ingushetia, Chechnya and KChR to agree to round vaccination.
He advised people living in other parts of Russia to follow the vaccination schedule and not neglect vaccination.