Fighting Against Polio: The Global Effort to Eradicate the Virus Faces Challenges

The global effort to end polio will likely miss two key goals on the path to defeating the virus this year, according to a report.

The goal for 2023 was to interrupt transmission of the natural polio virus in the two countries where it is still endemic, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and to do the same with a variant of polio known as “vaccine derived” that is causing outbreaks in other places.

The Independent Monitoring Board, a group of polio experts that oversees the work of the UN-backed Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), said neither goal would be met. goals this year.

The GPEI agreed on both counts, citing insecurity in key locations as one of the remaining challenges and highlighting in a statement responding to the review that ending “vaccine-derived” outbreaks is what is likely to take the longest.

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Fight to eradicate polio faces rocky road, experts warn

Eradicating polio, a viral disease that can cause paralysis, has been a key global health goal for decades. Cases have been reduced by more than 99% since 1988 thanks to mass vaccination campaigns, but making polio the second infectious disease to be completely eradicated—after smallpox in 1980—has proven more difficult.

“But it can be achieved. And we have to make sure we finish the job,” said Aidan O’Leary, director of polio eradication at the World Health Organization, a GPEI partner along with states and funders such as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Only seven cases of the natural polio virus have been recorded this year, five in Afghanistan and two in Pakistan.

O’Leary said interruption of transmission of this form of polio is likely to occur in early 2024, just a few months behind the target.

This means that the hope of ending polio permanently in 2026 is still alive, at least as far as the natural virus is concerned, he said in a telephone interview with Reuters.

With information from Reuters.

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2023-09-22 16:08:00
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