Indonesia increased polio vaccinations around several villages in West Java today as international concern grew over an outbreak of the virus.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said the number of positive cases had risen to six. All were near the city of Sukabumi, about 100 kilometres south of Jakarta. Health officials are studying up to 10 other possible cases.
John Budd, a spokesman for the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), said the agency was "extremely concerned" about the re-emergence of polio in the world's most populous Muslim nation for the first time since 1995.
The World Health Organization's (WHO) campaign to halt transmission worldwide by the end of 2005 was dealt a severe blow in mid-2003 when Nigeria's Kano state banned vaccines because Muslim elders said they were part of a Western plot to spread HIV and infertility.
Indonesia is the 16th previously polio-free country to be reinfected in the past two years, including 13 in Africa, according to the Geneva-based WHO.
There were 1,267 cases of polio worldwide in 2004, up from 784 the previous year, according to the UN health agency.