Nadia Siekeh NCHIGIE1
1Corot Medical Laboratory and Diagnostics, Buea
CaHReF 2018, Yaoundé Congres hall, 08 – 11 January 2019 , OAUU0100
Background: Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) is the sudden onset of weakness and floppiness in any part of the body in a child < 15 years of age or paralysis in a person of any age in whom polio is suspected. AFP surveillance was adopted by the WHO in 1988 to monitor progress towards poliomyelitis eradication. Cameroon recorded 36 cases of indigenous wild poliovirus from Jan. 2003 to Dec. 2014. Evaluating the surveillance indicators adopted by WHO and identifying areas that need improvement in this part of the country is of utmost importance.
Objective: This study evaluated the process of AFP surveillance system using the WHO guideline indicators for minimum performance standards.
Method: This study describe the results of a four-year surveillance of AFP in the Southwest region (SWR) of Cameroon. A Retrospective descriptive analysis was conducted on secondary surveillance data on the demographic characteristics, vaccination history and virological investigation on stool specimens collected during investigation for the South West Region (SWR) from 2012- 2015 in children < 15years and analysis was done using SPSS version 20.0.
Results: The SWR recorded 109 AFP cases within this study period. Of these, 63.3% were children <5years of age, 55.9% were male, only 46.8% had received complete immunization for Oral polio vaccine (OPV) while the immunization status of 5.5% was unknown. None of the cases were confirmed poliomyelitis and the annualized non- polio rate met the WHO target of ≥ 2 from 4.4 in 2012 to 6.8 in 2014 cases/100000 children < 15years. From 2012-2015, 48.6%, 53.7% and 51.8% of specimens collected, respectively reached the national laboratory in good condition (WHO target ≥ 90%).
Conclusion: Core AFP surveillance indicators were met for completeness of weekly reporting while the WHO target for timeliness of weekly reporting( ≥ 80%) were not met throughout the study period. However the surveillance system needs to address the aspect of delayed specimens and specimens arriving the National Laboratory in good condition.