On August 25, the Africa Regional Certification Commission announced during a World Health Organization (WHO) event that all 47 countries of the African continent are now free of polio. A milestone achieved after decades of efforts towards the global eradication of polio.
The disabling and life-threatening disease caused by the poliovirus usually affects children under five years old and sometimes could cause irreversible paralysis. It has also caused the death of many in the past, especially when breathing muscles are affected.
Many children in Africa were paralyzed due to the poliovirus twenty five years ago. Today's success means that 90 percent of the world's population is now free of the disease-the Eastern Mediterranean office of WHO said that polio is still endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Africa's last recorded polio case was four years ago in Nigeria, a country that accounted for more than half of all the global polio cases. Since there is no cure for the virus, health authorities have endlessly campaigned for vaccination in Nigeria and other places, which played a significant role in finally stopping the disease from spreading.
Eliminating Polio in Africa
The Africa Regional Certification Commission said that 95 percent of Africa's population should be immunized from poliovirus before declaring the continent polio-free. The last of three strains of the virus has finally been eliminated in Africa after two out of the three strains were previously eradicated worldwide.
A rare form of poliovirus remains in Africa, with 177 cases identified this year derived from the mutated form of oral polio vaccine that can be spread to under-immunized communities.
Dr. Jonas Salk invented an inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) in 1952, which was first used three years later. Then in 1961, Dr. Albert Sabin developed the oral polio vaccine (OPV) that has been used by countries around the globe in their immunization programs.
But poliovirus paralyzed 75,000 children across Africa in 1996, wherein all countries in the continent are affected. Nelson Mandela launched his "Kick Polio Out" program in the same year in which millions of health workers would go village-to-village to administer polio vaccines.
Rotary International, who had spearheaded the polio vaccination drive since the 1980s, supported this program, and successfully averted an estimated 1.8 million cases of poliovirus since 1996 thanks to the billions of polio vaccines distributed in the continent.
Challenges in Eliminating Polio and Its Probability of Returning
In 2016, the last cases of polio were recorded in Nigeria, particularly in Borno state, where a conflict in the Islamist militant group made some parts of Nigeria inaccessible.
Widespread rumors and misinformation regarding the vaccine slowed down immunization efforts. According to some of these rumors, the vaccine contains infertility hormones as part of an American plot to reduce the Muslim population. Through laboratory tests, Nigerian scientists dismissed these claims as mere rumors.
Sadly, health workers are sometimes killed when doing their job. It took decades before the poliovirus, and the rumors about could be eradicated. The WHO said that countries should remain vigilant and avoid complacency as polio can easily be imported to a polio-free country.
Until there is a global eradication of polio, countries must not let their guard down and continue to vaccinate.
Read More: Polio Vaccine Update: The More Stable & Safer Approach In Vaccine Manufacture
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