A Milestone in Global Health
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31 มกราคม 2014
After a successful national immunization campaign, India has announced that it is now polio-free.
Polio is a highly infectious viral disease which is usually passed on by drinking contaminated water. The disease attacks the central nervous system and can cause paralysis, muscular atrophy, deformed arms and legs and sometimes death. Immunization is the only way to stop polio from spreading.
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Thanks to immunization, this child won't get polio. GNU FDL
Fortunately, there are only a few countries where large numbers of polio cases are still found, such as Afghanistan, Nigeria, Pakistan, and until very recently, India. It has been difficult to immunize the entire population because many of the most at-risk people are either migrant or live in extremely remote locations. Since the virus cannot live outside the human body, a carefully planned effort to stop the spread of the disease could eliminate it forever. To date, smallpox is the only disease which has been officially wiped out.
For this reason, India's annoucement really is something to celebrate. India's last reported case was in January 2011; after three years with no new cases, a country can be declared polio free.
Even just a few years ago, the process of wiping out polio in India seemed close to impossible, according to the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. But with the support of over one million volunteers, a massive vaccination campaign was started to innoculate migrant families at transportation cross points, construction areas and even cultural events. People crossing the border from Pakistan, one of the other countries with high numbers of polio cases, were also vaccinated.
The campaign successfully reduced the number of cases by 94 percent between 2009 and 2010. There was only a single reported case in 2011. This result was only possible because volunteers, philanthropists, local government and international health organizations like the WHO were able to coordinate their efforts.
Nata Menabde, India's World Health Organisation representative, said that the WHO would officially declare India polio-free by the end of March, after the legal process for certification was completed.
Menabde hopes India’s success might give other countries the courage to continue the fight against the dreaded disease. "Polio eradication is a very costly operation and so donors and partners were losing hope and patience. Now they are all very actively mobilized into channeling their efforts."