AFRICA ERADICATES POLIO AFTER TWENTY-FOUR YEARS, WITH NO REPORTED CASES

After the World Health Organization designed a plan in 1993 to eradicate polio through immunization in forty-one different countries in Africa, through massive oral vaccination campaigns twice a year, on 25 August 2020 the same organization issued a press release stating that Africa was certified free of wild polio.

In achieving the required nine billion oral vaccines, 220 million children were vaccinated in multiple doses, along with two million volunteer vaccinators who supported the campaign from 1996 to 2020. The initial projection planned to eradicate the disease by 1999, but the task took twenty years longer than expected.

Today, only two countries in the world still have wild poliovirus transmission, namely Pakistan and Afghanistan. Measures for immunization should not therefore be relaxed, as the virus could be imported from these countries again.

Sources: World Health Organization. Global polio eradication initiative applauds WHO African region for wild polio-free certification. News. 2020. www.africakicksoutwildpolio.com

Picture: Sunday Alamba

Written by Dr. Carmen de la Rocha

D. in Plant Biotechnology, CINVESTAV-Irapuato - Master of Science in Biochemical Engineering, ITC - Bachelor of Science in Nutrition and Food Science, IBERO, León - Supervisor of the Department of Development CidVID - Professor of Subject B, CUCS UdeG Member of the National System of Researchers, level I.