Malawi finds Africa’s first wild polio case in five years

Polio usually affects children under five, sometimes leading to irreversible paralysis. Death can occur when breathing muscles are affected.

Twenty-five years ago thousands of children in Africa were paralysed by the virus. But following a mass vaccination campaign across the continent 95% of the population has been immunised.

There is no cure but the polio vaccine protects children for life.

As the case came from Pakistan, it does not affect the continent’s wild poliovirus-free status, the World Health Organization (WHO) says.

Wild polio is caught from the environment, but there is another type of polio linked to the oral vaccine (which contains live, weakened virus) that is equally worrying.

It can linger in the gut, mutate and spread in areas where few people are vaccinated. There have been outbreaks of this form of polio in more than 20 African countries in recent years.