Epidemiology of poliomyelitis in northwestern Ethiopia.

OBJECTIVES To determine the magnitude of poliomyelitis and assess its epidemiological features. DESIGN A cross-sectional community based, house-to-house survey. SETTING Six urban and ten rural villages in Gondar Zuria district, north-western Ethiopia. SUBJECTS Twelve thousand children aged 1-15 years residing in the randomly selected areas were enrolled in the study to identify children with walking abnormality. Paralytic poliomyelitis is considered as flaccid paralysis in one or both legs with normal sensations and acute onset without progression. RESULTS Out of 12,000 children aged 1-15 years enrolled, 20 were found to have paralytic poliomyelitis. The prevalence of residual poliomyelitis was found to be 2.1 per 1000 children aged 1-15 years with the estimated annual incidence rate of 7.7 per 100,000 population. Sixty percent of the cases were from urban areas and 55% of the cases were males. CONCLUSIONS The magnitude of paralytic poliomyelitis is high in the study area, thus expanding the expanded programme of immunizations with a strong surveillance system is suggested.