The independent Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC) for Polio Eradication officially declared that the 47 countries in the UN World Health Organization (WHO) African Region are free of the virus, with no cases reported for four years. 

“This is a momentous milestone for Africa. Now future generations of African children can live free of wild polio,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. 

Polio is a viral disease that can cause paralysis, and mainly affects children under five.  

The virus is transmitted from person to person, mostly through contact with infected faeces, or less frequently through contaminated water or food. It enters the body through the mouth and multiplies inside the intestines. 

While there is no cure for polio, the disease can be prevented through a simple and effective oral vaccine, thus protecting a child for life.  

‘A historic day for Africa’ 

The ARCC certification entailed a decades-long process of documentation and analysis of polio surveillance, immunization and laboratory capacity, as well as field verification visits to each country in the region. 

The last case of wild poliovirus in the region was detected in Nigeria in 2016. 

“Today is a historic day for Africa,” said Professor Rose Gana Fomban Leke, ARCC Chairperson, announcing the certification. 

 A commitment by leaders 

The journey to eradication began with a promise made in 1996 by Heads of State during the 32nd session of the Organization of African Unity held in Yaoundé, Cameroon,  where they pledged to stamp out polio, which was paralyzing an estimated 75,000 children annually on the continent. 

That same year, the late Nelson Mandela jumpstarted Africa’s commitment to polio eradication by launching the Kick Polio Out of Africa campaign, supported by Rotary International, which mobilized nations to step up efforts to ensure every child received the polio vaccine. 

Nearly two million spared  

Since then, polio eradication efforts have spared up to 1.8 million children from crippling life-long paralysis, and saved approximately 180,000 lives, WHO reported. 

“This historic achievement was only possible thanks to the leadership and commitment of governments, communities, global polio eradication partners and philanthropists,” said Dr. Moeti.  

“I pay special tribute to the frontline health workers and vaccinators, some of whom lost their lives, for this noble cause.” 

Always remain vigilant 

However, Dr. Moeti warned that Africa must remain vigilant against a resurgence of the wild poliovirus.  

Keeping vaccination rates up also wards against the continued threat of vaccine-derived polio, or cVDPV2. 

WHO explained that while rare, vaccine-derived polioviruses can occur when the weakened live virus in the oral polio vaccine passes among populations with low levels of immunization.  Over time, the virus mutates to a form that can cause paralysis.  

Adequate immunization thus protects against wild polio and circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses, the UN agency said. 

Learning from polio eradication 

WHO officials in Africa believe that the experience in eradicating wild poliovirus has other benefits for health on the continent. 

Despite weak health systems, and significant logistical and operational challenges, countries collaborated effectively to achieve the milestone, according to Dr. Pascal Mkanda, Coordinator of WHO Polio Eradication Programme in the region. 

“With the innovations and expertise that the polio programme has established, I am confident that we can sustain the gains, post-certification, and eliminate cVDPV2,” he said. 

The experience also will inform response to other challenges, both new and ongoing, Dr. Moeti added. 

“The expertise gained from polio eradication will continue to assist the African region in tackling COVID-19 and other health problems that have plagued the continent for so many years and ultimately move the continent toward universal health coverage,” she said. “This will be the true legacy of polio eradication in Africa.” 

UNICEF works to ease the suffering of children whose lives have been ‘turned upside-down’ after Beirut blast

Through two airlifts and commercial cargo routes, vital personal protective equipment (PPE), medical, health hygiene and nutrition supplies were able to reach those in desperate need.

“Before the dust had begun to settle, UNICEF teams were working to ensure that urgently needed humanitarian supplies could reach children and families affected as soon as possible”, said UNICEF Lebanon Representative Yukie Mokuo.

On 4 August, a cache of ammonium nitrate caused a deadly explosion in Lebanon that rocked the capital of Beirut, causing devastation in a city already suffering from the global coronavirus pandemic. 

The blast killed close to 200 people, injured thousands of others, left around a quarter of a million homeless, and sparked protests that prompted the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his entire cabinet.

On the ground

The UN agency’s immediate response was to distribute 18 shipments of pre-positioned supplies, which were in stock, while working to procure additional humanitarian items locally, including PPE, infection prevention and control (IPC) kits and other hygiene items, as well as provisions to support psycho-social assistance to affected children. 

To compliment the locally procured supplies, additional materials were sent to Beirut from UNICEF’s global supply hub in Copenhagen, with further shipments planned in the coming days and weeks.

“Children have had their lives turned upside-down”, Ms. Mokou reminded. “Making sure that families have their basic needs met will allow them to start rebuilding their lives and look to the future”.

Much more needed

Against the backdrop that COVID-19 cases in the country continue to surge, and that the explosions destroyed 10 containers of PPE, it was critical that UNICEF was able to deliver more than $3.5 million worth of critical PPE and IPC kits. 

“As families fight to rebuild after the chaos of the explosions, coupled with the ongoing economic crisis and the added threat of COVID-19, the support of our donors and partners has been absolutely critical”, she continued, “but much more is still needed”.

The humanitarian supplies were delivered with the assistance of the European Union’s European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO) and the Government of Belgium and through a donation from the Sanofi Foundation.

However, UNICEF still requires $46.7 million to respond to the immediate needs of children and families over the next three months – with a focus on keeping children safe; rehabilitating basic essential services; and equipping young people with the skills they need to help rebuild their country – all while limiting the spread of COVID-19.

“Now is the time for the international community to stand with the people of Lebanon and ensure that they receive the help and assistance required”, concluded the UNICEF envoy.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva, World Health Organization (WHO) spokesperson Dr. Margaret Harris addressed concerns that the development could herald a new alert.

“The important – other important – thing to note is the numbers are very, very small,” she said. “So this is one documented case in over 23 million and we will probably see other documented cases. But it seems to be not a regular event we would have seen many more cases.”

Nonetheless, Dr. Harris& noted that the reinfection signalled on Monday was significant.

Virus mutations

According to the University of Hong Kong scientists who announced the development, the virus strains that infected the man more than four months apart were different.

“The important thing here is that this is clear documentation,” the WHO spokesperson said. “So, we’ve had anecdotal reports every now and then from people who’ve tested negative, then tested positive. And it hasn’t been clear up until this case whether that was simply a problem of testing or whether people were getting infected a second time.”

Priorities for the UN health agency include understanding “what this means in terms of (people’s) immunity”, Dr. Harris continued.

Tracking process ongoing

“This is why we have got a lot of research groups actually tracking people, measuring antibodies, trying to understand how long the immune protection lasts – the natural immune protection – and that should be understood as it is not the same as the immune protection that a vaccine provides.”

To date, the WHO has recorded nearly 23.5 million cases of COVID-19 infection globally, with more than 809,000 deaths. The Americas have been worst-hit by region, with more than 12.5 million people infected, followed by Europe (3.995 million), South-East Asia (3.666 million), Eastern Mediterranean (1.840 million), Africa (1.007 million) and Western Pacific (460,991).

Vaccine initiative gathers pace

In a related development, WHO said that more than 170 countries are cooperating on a global initiative to produce fairly priced COVID-19 vaccines once they are licensed and approved.

The COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access Facility (COVAX) initiative involves countries and vaccine manufacturers; it is led by WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

In a statement, WHO said that COVAX has the world’s “largest and most diverse COVID-19 vaccine portfolio” with nine candidate vaccines, nine more “under evaluation and conversations underway with other major producers”.

WHO described the project as only global initiative that is working with governments and manufacturers to ensure COVID-19 vaccines are available worldwide to both higher-income and lower-income countries.

But it insisted that in order to secure enough doses of vaccines to protect the most vulnerable populations – such as health workers and the elderly – funding was needed by 31 August deadline.

By James Blears

The new academic year has started this week in Mexico, but children remain at home, doing classes via the television or the internet.

Mexican Education Secretary Esteban Moctezuma says this is by far the best and the safest option for Mexico, pointing out that children in other countries have gone back to classes, and almost immediately new outbreaks have occurred. 

Standing alongside Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, Moctezuma says that the main educational reliance is on television, because it has more scope and range than the internet for public education. However, many private schools have gone back to the internet formula.

More than half of the country’s work force is employed in the informal economy, so they have to physically go to their jobs, often taking their younger children with them. The Education Ministry has established 160 telephone support lines, but with more than thirty million students, resources are thinly spread and sorely stretched.

President Lopez Obrador claims the virulence of the virus is now waning, yet Health Officials confirm the death toll now exceeds 60,000 victims. Testing for Covid-19 has now dropped to three people per one hundred thousand.

In June Deputy Health Minister and Covid Spokesman Hugo Lopez Gatell said that if deaths surpassed 60,000 by October it would be a catastrophe and the worst-case scenario. Now these words have come back to haunt him.

By Vatican News

The African continent is now free from cases of wild polio, as global efforts to completely eradicate the virus continue to move in the right direction. Currently, only two countries in the world – Afghanistan and Pakistan – still report cases of polio.

On Tuesday, the Africa Regional Committee for Certification (ARCC), an independent regional body set up by the World Health Organisation (WHO), concluded that the transmission of the wild poliovirus strain has been interrupted in all 47 countries of the WHO African Region. 

This certification comes after Nigeria, the last African country with polio cases, recorded no new cases for the past four consecutive years. This announcement means that five of the six WHO regions, representing 90 percent of the world’s population is polio-free.

Certification of polio eradication is done on a regional basis. A region is only eligible for certification after all countries in the area show proof of the absence of wild poliovirus for at least three consecutive years, and demonstrate a high standard of surveillance for any outbreaks.

Polio, a crippling and potentially fatal infectious disease, has no cure but can be prevented by the administration of a vaccine. It is typically transmitted through contaminated water and usually affects children under five, sometimes leading to irreversible paralysis.

Combatting polio

By 1996, more than 75,000 children across Africa were affected by polio. That same year, the late Nelson Mandela launched the “Kick Polio Out of Africa” program which mobilized health workers and organisations to put in renewed efforts to ensure a polio-free Africa.

The final efforts to eradicate polio in Africa were concentrated largely on northeastern Nigeria after an outbreak was reported in 2016. Before that, the country had gone two years without any cases identified and had even been taken off the global list of polio-endemic countries in 2015.

Leading virologist and chairman of the Nigeria Expert Review Committee on Polio Eradication and Routine Immunization, Professor Oyewole Tomori, said that the country’s journey to eradicating polio began in 1977 when the WHO adopted the Universal Child Immunization Program. The goal, he explained at a press conference on Tuesday, was to vaccinate every child in the world against measles, tetanus, whooping cough and polio by 1990. However, by that deadline, Nigeria was barely able to achieve the 80 percent target.

Tomori explained some of the challenges to achieving this global health milestone include difficulty in accessing some areas in order to reach some populations, as well as a 2003 boycott of vaccines by some states in Nigeria due to unfounded rumors that they caused infertility. 

He recalled that in Kano state alone, approximately 3.7 million children went unvaccinated in 2004 due to the misinformation. The situation was further compounded by the outbreak of armed conflict in northern Nigeria which displaced millions of people. He said some of his colleagues were killed in the line of duty while trying to vaccinate children against polio.

Eradication: Looking ahead

This new certification does not mean that Africa is completely polio-free.

A vaccine-derived poliovirus – a rare mutated form of the virus – still remains in Africa with several dozen cases identified this year. Even though it is not the wild polio strain, it can still emerge among populations living in areas of low immunity.

In addition, immunization campaigns that have been effective in keeping numbers low have been significantly disrupted due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.

By Robin Gomes

Fear over a revolutionary government surfaced again in the Philippines after an assembly in Pampanga on August 22 revived a long-running push for the establishment of a revolutionary government headed by Duterte. Citing the need to heal “all the ills of our society”, Duterte’s supporters want him to overthrow his own constitutionally mandated government, dump the Constitution and everything it stands for. 

Tackling real problems

Several Catholic bishops in the Philippines have raised concern over a call for a revolutionary government by supporters of President Rodrigo Duterte, saying it will only end in “chaos” rather than improvement in the country’s situation.

Caritas Philippines director, Bishop Jose Colin Bagaforo of Kidapawan, said that the call is not only inciting sedition, but it will, at best, ruin the government.

He warned that instead of solving the nation’s real problems, a revolutionary government will “use the Filipino people as pawns to justify vested interests”. 

Bishop Bagaforo said that rather than focusing too much on dividing the nation, Duterte must commit himself to handle the COVID pandemic more efficiently, support the private sector against recession, maximize government funds to aid education, and do better at defending human rights. The Caritas head urged Filipinos to watch out against “deceiving plots” against democracy and people’s welfare.

Betrayal of nation

Bishop Broderick Pabillo, the Apostolic Administrator of the Manila Archdiocese, agreed with Bishop Bagaforo. Describing a revolutionary government as unjust, immoral and seditious, he said such an act is a betrayal of the nation.

Archbishop Martin Jumoad of Ozamiz said the government should rather focus on the pandemic and the ongoing health crisis.  

For his part, Bishop Ruperto Santos of Balanga said that the proposal is not only unconstitutional but an “open admittance that the present government is a total failure.”

“They want to change the government just to install the same government officials. There is no sense, void of human reason,” he said.

Recalling the bitter experiences of the people under the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos, retired Bishop Arturo Bastes of Sorsogon warned that if such a plan is “pushed through, Filipinos will get impatient and something worse might happen”. 

Retired Bishop Teodoro Bacani of Novaliches denounced the supporters of a revolutionary government as “crazy”. 

Other groups reject the call

According to the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP), which brings together all the lawyers in the country, “There is no legal, factual, practical, or moral basis for a revolutionary government under the present circumstances.” “If the president truly cares about the country he vowed to serve, he should focus on solving imminent problems and get back to real work which is piling up,” said IBP national president Domingo Egon Cayosa in a statement.

Both the Philippine National Police and the Department of National Defense have said they would not support any calls for a revolutionary government.

The League of Provinces of the Philippines (LPP), the formal organisation of all of the Philippines’ 81 provinces, has also rejected the idea of a revolutionary government. According to LPP president, Presbitero J. Velasco Jr., the governor of Marinduque, if the goal is to make way for a federal form of government, there are constitutional means to do so. “An adventurist attempt at a revolutionary government might give the illusion that it is the solution to the problem but it will only aggravate the problem by creating anarchy and destabilisation,” Velasco said.  

By Lydia O’Kane

From 1 September to 4 October, Christians all over the world will celebrate the Season of Creation, as well as the Day of Creation on 1 September.

As in past years, both the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and The Council of Bishops’ Conferences of Europe (CCEE), are encouraging Member Churches in Europe to come together over the course of the month to celebrate the “richness of the Christian faith as an expression to protect our common home.

Creation a gift for mankind

In a statement issued by Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, President of CCEE, and Rev. Christian Krieger, President of CEC, Creation is described as “a gift of God for mankind and for all living beings. It is, therefore, our responsibility to protect it as good and reliable stewards, and as faithful servants of God.”

Pope Francis’s call to protect our common home

They point out that Pope Francis, in his encyclical Laudato Si’, underlines, “the urgent challenge to protect our common home includes a concern to bring the whole human family together to seek a sustainable and integral development.”

They also stress Pope Francis’s appeal “for a new dialogue about how we are shaping the future of our planet.”

The eminent theologian Jurgen Moltmann, they highlight, calls for “a discernment of the God, who is present in creation through his Holy Spirit,” a discernment that “can bring men and women to reconciliation and peace with nature.”

Ecumenical dimension

Emphasizing the ecumenical dimension to the Season of Creation, the joint statement gives thanks for the proposal of the late Ecumenical Patriarch Dimitrios I in 1989.

Since that time, the two presidents comment, “the idea of the Season of Creation and its ecumenical spirit has been further confirmed by the European Ecumenical Assemblies organised jointly by CEC and CCEE in Basel 1989, Graz 1997 and Sibiu 2007.”

COVID-19

This year, the Season will be observed in the midst of a global pandemic.

The Coronavirus, the statement reads, has shown “more than ever that we are not isolated from each other and that conditions related to human health and well-being are fragile.”

It goes on to say that the “impact of the pandemic forces us to take seriously the need for vigilance and the need for conditions of sustainable life throughout the earth. This is even more important when considering the environmental devastation and the threat of climate change.”

Jubilee for the Earth

In conclusion, the two presidents invite Christians to celebrate the Season of Creation this year under the heading of Jubilee for the Earth. “The concept of Jubilee,” they note, “is rooted in the Bible and underlines that there must exist a just and sustainable balance between social, economic and ecological realities.”

They also underline that “the lesson from the biblical concept of jubilee points us towards the need to restore balance in the very systems of life, affirming the need for equality, justice and sustainability and confirming the need for a prophetic voice in defence of our common home.” 

By Francesca Merlo

A year of Waste Management Plan at the Salesian Don Bosco Technologial Institute (DBTI) in Port Moresby. This is how a group of young people are responding to Pope Francis’s request to care for our common home.

The Strenna

Each year the Salesian Order focuses their work on a Strenna, or theme, released by the Rector Major, Fr Angel Artime. This year’s Strenna is “Good Christians, Upright Citizens”.

An article released on the website of the Episcopal Conference of Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands explains that the year of Integrated Waste Management at DBTI is motivated by Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’ year, which began on 24 May. In addition, it emphasises “concrete inititives for the care of the environment as practical ways of exemplifying being upright citizens”.

The article, written by Fr Ariel Macatangay SDB, DBTI treasurer, explains that the council, focusing on Laudato Si’, is “proposing attitudes to be developed each month”. The points of emphasis for the months of June, July and August are the three terms commonly used to designate practical care for the environment: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.

Waste Management at DBTI

There is a need for integrated Waste Management for DBTI, writes Fr Macatangay. Despite the numerous efforts focused on waste collections, such as the buying of willie-bins, weekly rubbish collection and selling of scrap metal “we are not sure if our rubbish is disposed of in an environmentally friendly way” and wish that all our waste be properly disposed of, with “our ultimate goal” being “Zero Waste”, he says.

In order to achieve this goal, Fr Macatangay calls for interested volunteers among both students and staff.

“In the meanwhile, efforts at recycling different types of waste are intensifying”, continues the article.

These initiatives at waste management take place even while the COVID-19 pandemic rages on. As of the moment, much of the effort in waste management is exerted by the student and staff residents. Soon, we hope to involve more and more people until every member of the educative pastoral community becomes aware and contributes responsibly for sustainable management of waste.

The future of Papua New Guinea

Finally, Fr Macatangay writes that as in other parts of the world, young people become protagnists of initiatives and concrete actions for the care and preservation of the environment. “We hope that our youths at DBTI and eventually of our locality can sustain their efforts at integrated waste management and contribute in making Papua New Guinea the Paradise of the Pacific”.