Polio has maimed and killed hundreds of thousands of people
across the globe. Polio paralysis has caused physical suffering, life-long
dependency, loss of productivity and placed a heavy burden on poor families. Polio
is a communicable disease caused by one of three related wild polioviruses:
poliovirus types 1, 2 and 3. It attacks at any age but mainly affects children
under five. The virus typically enters the body through the mouth and
multiplies inside the gut. Initially it manifests as flu-like symptoms. Once
established, it enters the bloodstream and attacks the central nervous system.
As it proliferates, it destroys nerve cells which stimulate muscles. These
nerve cells cannot be renewed and affected muscles no longer function. The
virus circulates silently at first, possibly infecting up to 200 people before
the first case of paralysis surfaces.
Immunity against polio comes from either natural infection,
which is when one recovers from polio or is immuned against contracting the
disease through vaccination. As a result of the use of two vaccines developed
more than 50 years ago, the first is an injectable vaccine developed in the
1950s, the second an oral vaccine developed in the 1960s, the annual number of
polio cases has globally dropped by more than 99% from about half a million in
the 1980s to only 34 so far in 2015. But eliminating the last 1% of cases of
polio is still proving to be a challenge. Of the three poliovirus types, type 2
was successfully eradicated in 1999 and worldwide cases of the other types are
down to the lowest levels ever. In 1988 the World Health Assembly, which
governs the World Health Organisation, adopted the Global Polio Eradication
Initiative. The strategy was developed as a result of the success in
eradicating smallpox in the 1970s, because of the similarities in the spread of
the viruses. Like smallpox, polio only attacks humans. Polio viruses also only
survive for a very short time in the environment and there are no animal or
insect reservoirs that carry them. Similar to smallpox, polio can be eradicated
and an effective vaccine is available. Once a person is immunised against it,
immunity is life-long.
Currently, four fifths of the world's population live in
regions certified to be polio-free. More than 20 years after North and South
America eliminated the threat of polio, sub-Saharan Africa is finally on the
brink of being declared polio-free. Last month the region marked one year
without a new polio case following the last case in Nigeria on 24 July 2014. If
no new cases are reported for another three years, Africa will be certified
polio-free by late 2018.
In 1996 African heads of state resolved to stamp polio out
of Africa. Then South African President Nelson Mandela launched the three-year
"Kick Polio out of Africa" campaign. But by 2000, wild poliovirus was
still circulating in Egypt, Niger, and Nigeria. The situation worsened when the
polio vaccination was stopped in northern Nigeria for religious reasons. As a
result, polio transmission spread from the area to eight other African
countries in 2003.
Poliovirus continued to circulate in Africa until last year.
But the number of affected countries has steadily been decreasing. In 2004
there were 14 countries that had polio outbreaks. These included Benin,
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Côte
d'Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, and Sudan. In 2011,
this dropped to 12. Last year, there were only five African countries with
polio outbreaks: Nigeria, Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea, Ethiopia, and Somalia. In
all these outbreaks, the common factor was the country's failure to immunise.
The reasons for this failure varied from one outbreak to another, but in each
case there was a group of non-vaccinated people that enabled the poliovirus to
seed itself and spread far and wide. The size of the unimmunised population
ranged from small isolated groups which refused vaccination for religious or
cultural reasons to entire birth cohorts in areas like Somalia experiencing
humanitarian emergencies.
As long as a single child remains infected, children in all
countries are at risk of contracting polio. While the humanitarian benefits of
polio eradication in Africa will be immeasurable, efforts have been made to
quantify the financial savings that can be anticipated. The World Health
Organisation estimates that once polio is eradicated and vaccination halted,
global savings from vaccination, treatment costs, and rehabilitation will
amount to nearly US$2 billion a year. African countries should start careful
polio legacy planning now to ensure that most of that money is redirected to
other health programmes.
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