Australia will contribute 2.5 million AUD to the Chinese Government's emergency response to an imported case of poliomyelitis, according to a news release from the Australian Embassy in Beijing.

The emergency measures, which will be managed by the World Health Organization, will be implemented in four areas of west China--Ningxia, Qinghai, Gansu and Tibet--as an effort to help prevent the spread of polio.

Australia will help China by providing supports for supplementary polio immunization for children under 10 years old in the four target areas, conducting special surveillance to detect, investigate and report any polio case, and providing information to government leaders at all levels on polio eradication.

In October last year, a child in northwest China's Qinghai province was crippled by polio, which is the first confirmed case of polio in China for more than three years, and also the first one in the Western Pacific region in more than two years.