'Major Milestone' Reached In Eliminating Polio Globally: Experts
by Pharmacy Life - Published on 16 November 2014
The US Centres for Disease Control (CDC) has said that it believes a 'major milestone' has been reached in the battle to eliminate polio globally.
The announcement comes after the publication of a report by CDC's experts, in which they state that
a second of the three forms of poliovirus has been eliminated after mass vaccination campaigns.
'In 1988,' says the report, 'the World Health Assembly resolved to eradicate polio worldwide.
Since then, four of the six World Health Organization (WHO) regions have been certified as polio free: the Americas in 1994, the Western Pacific Region in 2000, the European Region in 2002, and the South-East Asia Region in 2014. Currently,
nearly 80 per cent of the world's population lives in areas certified as polio-free. Certification may be considered when ≥3 years have passed since the last isolation of wild poliovirus (WPV) in the presence of sensitive, certification-standard surveillance.'
Polio is highly infectious and causes paralysis in up to one in 200 people. There has, however, been huge progress in eliminating the disease, with the
number of cases falling from 350,000 in 1988 to 416 last year. The last case of type 3 poliovirus was detected in Pakistan in November 2012 and the experts have said that while the world is 'closer than ever' to completely eradicating polio, the situation in Pakistan remains a concern.
The full report can be viewed here.