Infantile paralysis is threatening to spread into southwest China, 10 years after the disease disappeared from the country.

Immunity expert Xu Ruiyun says, cases have been found this year in Myanmar, India, Pakistan, Cambodia which border Yunnan Province, in southwest China.

Infantile paralysis is a highly infectious viral disease that chiefly affects children.

Currently, the local government has prepared 850,000 doses of free vaccine for children under five across the provincial capital Kunming to prevent an outbreak.

The World Health Organization announced China was free of infantile paralysis in 1994.

In 1999, one case from overseas was reported in Qinghai province in northwest China.

In its acute form it causes inflammation of motor neurons of the spinal cord and brainstem, leading to paralysis, muscular atrophy and often deformity. Through vaccination, the disease is preventable.

Worldwide, a total of 333 cases of infantile paralysis were reported in the first six months of this year, almost double that of the same period last year.

(CRI December 17, 2004)