After four consecutive years with no new cases, outbreaks of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) continue to spread. Faced with this situation, the governments of the African Region of the World Health Organization (WHO) pledged on Thursday to eliminate all remaining forms of poliomyelitis.

While the African Region was certified free of wild poliovirus a year ago, after four consecutive years with no new cases, the number of poliovirus cases increased last year, in part due to disruptions in vaccination campaigns against poliomyelitis caused by Covid-19. Governments of the World Health Organization (WHO) African Region have presented a dashboard designed to track progress towards eradicating the virus. They are also committed to eradicating all forms of polio. These commitments were made at a meeting dedicated to the fight against poliomyelitis organized within the framework of the seventy-first session of the WHO Regional Committee for Africa. "The success in eradicating wild polio is a testament to what we can achieve when we work together with full awareness of the urgency," said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. .

At the Regional Committee, countries discussed how to begin implementing the new Polio Eradication Strategy 2022-2026 launched in June to urgently halt the spread of circulating polioviruses derived from a strain vaccine. The most urgent remains to deploy the new type 2 oral poliomyelitis vaccine (nOPV2). This is a new tool that could more sustainably contain outbreaks caused by circulating polioviruses derived from type 2 vaccine strains, which are the most prevalent.