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Lagos:
The UN’s World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday declared that Africa was now freed from the virus that causes polio, a landmark in a decades-long marketing campaign to eradicate the infamous illness world wide.
“Today is a historic day for Africa,” mentioned Prof. Rose Gana Fomban Leke, whose fee licensed that no circumstances had occurred on the continent for the previous 4 years, the edge for eradication of poliovirus.
Poliovirus now joins smallpox within the listing of viruses which were worn out in Africa, the WHO mentioned.
Since 1996, eradication efforts “have prevented up to 1.8 million children from crippling life-long paralysis and saved approximately 180,000 lives,” the company mentioned.
Poliomyelitis — the medical time period for polio — is an acutely infectious and contagious virus which assaults the spinal wire and causes irreversible paralysis in kids.
It was endemic world wide till a vaccine was discovered within the 1950s, although this remained out of attain for a lot of poorer international locations in Asia and Africa.
In 1988, when the WHO, UNICEF and Rotary launched the worldwide marketing campaign to eradicate the illness, there have been 350,000 circumstances globally. In 1996, there have been greater than 70,000 circumstances in Africa alone.
Thanks to a worldwide effort and monetary backing — some $19 billion over 30 years — solely Afghanistan and Pakistan have recorded circumstances this 12 months: 87 in complete.
Poliovirus is usually unfold within the faeces of an contaminated particular person and is picked up by contaminated water or meals.
Vaccinating folks to stop them from changing into contaminated thus breaks the cycle of transmission and ultimately eradicates the virus within the wild.
The final case of polio in Africa was detected in 2016 in Nigeria, the place vaccination efforts had been hampered by Boko Haram jihadists.
More than 20 staff concerned within the marketing campaign misplaced their lives.
“This is a momentous milestone for Africa. Now future generations of African children can live free of wild polio,” mentioned Matshidiso Moeti, the WHO’s regional director for Africa.
“This historic achievement was only possible thanks to the leadership and commitment of governments, communities, global polio eradication partners and philanthropists,” Moeti mentioned.
“I pay special tribute to the frontline health workers and vaccinators, some of whom lost their lives, for this noble cause.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is printed from a syndicated feed.)
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