Ukrainian Health Minister Alexander Kvitashvili has sought to allay international concerns of a potential polio epidemic in the country after two cases of infection, promising an immediate immunization drive after weeks of delays.
Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv on Oct. 9, Kvitashvili said the government was already “ready to go” with immunization efforts after an action plan was drawn up and a decree on the matter prepared the night before.
Kvitashvili’s comments came in response to scathing international criticism after two documented cases of the polio virus in western Ukraine’s Zakarpattia Oblast in late August left two young children paralyzed – and warranted little to no reaction from authorities.
It was the first case of the disease’s documentation in Europe since 2010, and it set off alarm bells throughout the international community.
Ellyn Ogden of the United States Agency for International Development said those alarm bells should still be ringing, despite the Health Ministry’s action plan.
Ogden expressed shock at the authorities’ delayed reaction to the situation, noting that “in the past, a confirmed case of polio would have gotten immediate attention.”
This time around, however, she said the response has been “inadequate” – so much so that the recent polio cases threaten to leave the country’s reputation with a “black eye.”
“Ukraine went from 90% coverage a decade ago, to 14% today. This is one of the lowest coverages in the world, including countries at war and those facing security and economic challenges,” Ogden said.
The two documented cases of the virus were vaccine-derived polio, meaning they could have been prevented if the population had a higher level of immunization.
“No other country in the world is in such a dire situation, or has shown such disregard for protecting children against childhood diseases,” Ogden said.
“It is now 45 days since the outbreak has been announced, and not a single child has been vaccinated,” Ogden said.
Ogden called the two documented cases the “tip of the iceberg,” warning that hundreds of other children had likely been infected but were asymptomatic.
Health guidelines call for immunization efforts within 15 days of an outbreak, she said, but Ukrainian authorities had made no such efforts, nor had they declared a health emergency, as is standard procedure in such cases.
Much of the controversy has stemmed from a lobbyist group’s calls for the government to destroy 3.7 million vaccines provided to the Health Ministry by the United Nations. The group, the All-Ukrainian Council for Patients’ Rights and Safety, had claimed that the vaccines were defective after having been frozen and then thawed out during transport.
Kvitashvili dismissed these claims, however, saying the delay in launching a major immunization drive was the result not of such “groundless” rumors but of getting healthcare professionals in the country trained properly.
Kvitashvili went so far as to acknowledge that the “groundless rumors about the quality of the vaccines” may have started, at least in part, to protect the interests of certain individuals – an apparent hint that Ukrainian pharmaceutical companies were putting pressure on lobbyists to secure their cut in future tenders.
If the vaccines provided by the UN had been destroyed, as Viktor Serdyuk of the lobbyist group demanded, a tender would have been held among Ukrainian companies to select a new provider.
Dr. Dorit Nitzan, head of the World Health Organization’s office in Ukraine, on Oct. 9 reiterated earlier reassurances that there was nothing wrong with the UN’s vaccines, and said she was finally “feeling encouraged after the six-week delay.”
“The polio outbreak is just one of the signs and symptoms of a diseased health system,” Nitzan said, stressing the need for support for an immunization drive from all levels of government.
Kvitashvili insisted that Ukraine was determined to stop the virus in its tracks, saying “to not react (to the outbreak) would be a problem not only for Ukraine, but for all of Europe.”
The areas where the two cases were document border Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland, fueling fears that the virus could make its way into Europe.
Even once the immunization drive begins, the fight against the virus isn’t really over, according to Ogden.
“The polio virus circulates silently. Only one child in 200 shows symptoms of paralysis. The other 199 children don’t know that they are spreading the virus, and it could take months or even years until the next paralytic case happens,” Ogden said.
The risk of an outbreak in Ukraine is “growing as long as the outbreak response is delayed,” she said, offering the cautionary tale of a similar situation in Tajikistan in 2010.
At that time, she said, “460 children were unnecessarily paralyzed by polio because they weren’t fully vaccinated.”
Kyiv Post staff writer Allison Quinn can be reached at [email protected].
