Africa declared free of wild polio

Polio used to be one of the biggest diseases in Africa but the independent body, the Africa Regional Certification Commission, says the continent is now finally free of the virus. Nigeria is the last African country to be declared free from the disease, having accounted for more than half of all cases in the world less than a decade ago. The disease is now only found in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Polio is an infection caused by the poliovirus that used to be very common all over the world. It can be caught from droplets from someone with polio sneezing near you.

It usually affects children under the age of five, in some cases it can cause some people to lose the ability to move parts of their body, also known as paralysis. In the 1950’s the UK had a huge breakout of polio, which led to the vaccine being created.

How Polio has be wiped out in Africa Two out of three strains of wild polio virus have been eradicated, or wiped out, worldwide. On 25 August, Africa was declared free of the last remaining strain of wild poliovirus. More than 95% of the population of Africa has been immunised against polio.

In 1996, polio paralysed more than 75,000 children in Africa. The same year Nelson Mandela, South Africa’s president, launched the Kick Polio Out of Africa campaign.

Over the last 24 years billions of oral polio vaccines have been provided. Because of this 1.8 million cases of wild poliovirus have been prevented and Africa is now wild polio free.

The world health organisation (WHO) said that 180,000 lives have been saved.What’s next?

“The end of wild polio in Africa is a great day,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. “But as we all know, it’s not the end of polio.”

There are still cases of wild polio in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a new strain of polio caused by a cheaper version of the vaccine still exists.This is very rare but WHO are working to control the outbreak and has had a rapid response team in Africa since Autumn 2019..Source: BBC