Via Reuters: WHO holds emergency meeting on cross-border spread of polio. Excerpt:
The World Health Organisation (WHO) began an emergency meeting with experts on Monday on how to halt the spread of the crippling polio virus across international borders in Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Polio passes easily from person to person and can spread rapidly among children, especially in the kind of unsanitary conditions endured by displaced people in war-torn regions, refugee camps and areas where healthcare is limited.
"Wild polio virus continues to spread internationally from both endemic and re-infected countries," the United Nations health agency said in a statement, adding that the meeting in Geneva would last several days.
Health experts from North America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the Middle East will be asked "to advise on whether the current developments on the spread of polio virus constitute a public health emergency of international concern", it said.
Polio re-emerged in Syria in 2013 for the first time in 14 years, fanning fears of a wider international proliferation and prompting a vast regional emergency vaccination campaign.