What is that Polio Picture? What will it take?
A little history – Before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, progress towards eradicating polio was proceeding at a remarkable rate. During the 1940s and ’50s, when polio outbreaks were a common scourge of the summer months, the disease killed or paralysed more than half a million people worldwide each year – mostly children. The introduction of inactivated poliovirus vaccine (IPV) and, later, live attenuated oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) led to a dramatic reduction in the incidence of polio in higher-income countries during the 1960s and ’70s.
But it wasn’t until the 1980s that the battle against polio really commenced. At that time, community- and school-based surveys revealed that polio was the leading cause of paralysis in lower-income countries, with one in every 200 polio infections causing paralysis. In 1988, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution for the worldwide eradication of the disease, and a public-private partnership called the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was launched. Led by national governments, together with the World Health Organization (WHO), Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, UNICEF, and later joined by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, GPEI has made huge progress in protecting countries’ populations against polio through widespread OPV campaigns.
A Win Against Polio is a Win for Global Health!
2022 Circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Case Total – 569. Afghanistan – 43, Algeria – 1, Benin – 7 (3 in 2021), Central African Republic – 3, Chad – 22 (0 in 2021), DR Congo – 238 (28 in 2021), Eritrea – 1, Ethiopia – 1, Ghana – 2, Israel – 1, Madagascar – 10 (13 in 2021), Malawi – 3, Mozambique – 16 (2 in 2021), Niger – 11 (18 in 2021), Nigeria – 42 (415 in 2021), Pakistan – 8, Somalia – 4 (1 in 2021), Togo – 0, United States – 1, Yemen – 154 (69 in 2021) .
New Polio Cases & Samples This Week – Afghanistan – 3 WPV1 Samples, Algeria – 4 cVDPV2 Samples, Chad – 4 cVDPV2 Cases, D R Congo – 3 cVDPV2 Cases, Ethiopia – 1 cVDPV2 Case, Nigeria – 4 cVDPV2 Cases + 2 Samples.
2021 Circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Cases -689 in 22 Countries.
2020 Circulating Vaccine Derived Polio Cases – 1,113 in 26 countries in 2020.
Quote of the Day
”The way I see it, if you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain!”—
The Final Two Polio Endemic Countries:
Pakistan
as of 11/26/2022
0 new Polio cases were reported this week.
20 Wild Polio cases – 2022 (1 Wild Polio case, 2021). The most recent case had an onset of paralysis on 9/20/22.
84 Wild Polio cases – 2020.
0 WPV1 and 0 cVDPV2 Positive Environmental Samples were reported this week in Pakistan.
Afghanistan
as of 11/26/2022
0 new Polio cases reported this week.
2 Wild Polio case – 2022, (4 Wild Polio cases, 2021). The most recent cases had an onset of paralysis on 9/10/22.
56 Wild Polio cases – 2020.
3 WPV1 and 0 CVDPV2-Positive Environmental Samples were reported this week in Afghanistan.
Our Goal is Global Polio Eradication!!
Terry Ziegler, Endowment/Major Gifts Adviser Rotary Region 36
