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WHO responds to criticism over polio vaccination campaign in Syria
WHO officials recently responded to allegations that the health organization had blocked a polio vaccination campaign in Syria and obstructed the testing of polio samples. Their commentary was published in The Lancet.
Bruce Aylward, MD, MPH, head of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and Ala Alwan, MD, WHO regional director for the Eastern Mediterranean, said those involved in the vaccination campaign face “immense hurdles,” including the active conflict between government forces and rebels, a lack of trust and a refugee crisis.
Bruce Aylward
“It is essential that the complexities of the environment in which they are working are properly understood and that where information is incomplete, or is not shared for security reasons, it is not replaced with speculation or accusation,” they wrote.
In November, an investigation by the German newsmagazine Der Spiegel indicated that WHO was cooperating exclusively with the Syrian government and did not allow stool samples from sick children in the rebel-occupied governorate of Deir ez-Zor to be tested at a laboratory in Gaziantep, Turkey. Der Spiegel reported that the samples were eventually collected by a team from the Turkish Health Ministry from the capital and found to be positive for poliomyelitis. The accusation was also referenced in an op-ed in January in The New York Times.
Ala Alwan
“WHO considers all results from all WHO-accredited laboratories in assessing the international risk posed by this outbreak and additional response requirements; WHO has neither the motive nor the means to block the testing of any specimens in any laboratory,” the officials wrote in response.
According to critics, WHO’s refusal to work with the Syrian National Coalition may have delayed the international response to the emerging polio epidemic in that country. However, Aylward and Alwan noted that information from rebel-controlled areas had prompted WHO to issue its first international alert on the polio outbreak in Syria on Oct. 19, 2013. Five days later, a nationwide vaccination campaign was underway.
“WHO is impartial in aiding communities on all sides of this crisis, despite the restraints placed on all humanitarian actors whether they operate from within Syria or from neighboring countries,” they wrote.
For more information:
Aylward RB. Lancet. 2014;doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(14)60132-X.
Coutts AP. Syria’s raging health crisis. The New York Times. Jan. 1, 2014.