WEST AFRICA: WHO calls meeting over fresh polio cases in Benin, Cameroon

Benin and Cameroon, previously certified free of polio virus, have been re-infected by strains from neighbouring Nigeria, prompting the World Health Organisation (WHO) to call an urgent meeting in Geneva on 15 January of health ministers of polio-affected countries. WHO said in a statement on Friday that ministers of health from Nigeria, Cameroon, Benin, Pakistan, India and Egypt would meet with international partners from WHO, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Rotary International and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control. The objective would be “to immediately intensify efforts to stop poliovirus transmission globally by the end of 2004.”