- Title
- Acute flaccid paralysis incidence and Zika virus surveillance, Pacific Islands
- Creator
- Craig, Adam T.; Butler, Michelle T.; Pastore, Roberta; Paterson, Beverley J.; Durrheim, David N.
- Relation
- Bulletin of the World Health Organization Vol. 95, Issue 1, p. 69-75
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.2471/BLT.16.171892
- Publisher
- World Health Organization
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- Problem: The emergence of Zika virus has challenged outbreak surveillance systems in many at-risk, low-resource countries. As the virus has been linked with Guillain-Barré syndrome, routine data on the incidence of acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) may provide a useful early warning system for the emergence of Zika virus. Approach: We documented all Zika virus outbreaks and cases in 21 Pacific Islands and territories for the years 2007 to 2015. We extracted data from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative database on the reported and expected annual incidence of AFP in children younger than 15 years. Using a Poisson probability test, we tested the significance of unexpected increases in AFP in years correlating with Zika virus emergence. Data were analysed separately for each Pacific Island country and territory. Local setting: In most Pacific Island countries, early warning surveillance for acute public health threats such as Zika virus is hampered by poor health infrastructure, insufficient human resources and geographical isolation. Relevant changes: Only one example was found (Solomon Islands in 2015) of a significant increase in reported AFP cases correlating with Zika virus emergence. Lessons learnt: We found no conclusive evidence that routinely reported AFP incidence data in children were useful for detecting emergence of Zika virus in this setting. More evidence may be needed from adult populations, who are more likely to be affected by Guillain-Barré syndrome. Reporting of AFP may be deficient in regions certified as polio-free.
- Subject
- Zika virus; Pacific Island countries; public health threats
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1350115
- Identifier
- uon:30492
- Identifier
- ISSN:0042-9686
- Rights
- © 2017 by The Authors; licensee the World Health Organization. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution IGO License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo/legalcode), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. In any reproduction of this article there should not be any suggestion that WHO or this article endorse any specific organization, products or services. The use of the WHO logo is not permitted. This notice should be preserved along with the article's original URL.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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