By S.T. Patrick
What began in the spring with the sudden paralysis of two Sudanese children, ages three and four, has now turned into a polio outbreak in Sudan. A week after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Africa free of the wild polio virus, UN health officials are now tracing the Sudanese outbreak to what the Associated Press called a “vaccine-sparked epidemic” in Chad. According to the WHO, the cVDPV2 polio virus (a different strain than the wild polio virus) is now also spreading through Chad and Cameroon. Genetic sequencing conducted by WHO investigators has found that the cases in Sudan, Chad, and Cameroon are all linked to vaccine doses from October 2019. Between Aug. 9 (declared by the WHO to be “Day Zero” of the outbreak) and Aug. 26, 13 cases have arisen in the region.