Since 2013, October 24 has been World Polio Day. A day created by Rotary International and its partners, not only to commemorate the birth of the American biologist Jonas Salk, inventor of the first vaccine, but also and above all to remind everyone who still does not know that it is now more than four decades since polio was eradicated and the battle over He was finally about to win.
Polio is a highly contagious viral disease that particularly affects children under 5 years of age and is characterized by an attack on the central nervous system, which can cause permanent paralysis within a few hours.
At the initiative of Rotary International
Forty-five years ago, Clem Renouf, President of Rotary International (1978-1979), while reading in a magazine, drew his attention to an article about the eradication of smallpox and wondered whether Rotary could not lead another crusade: the eradication of polio. In 1985, Rotary International established PolioPlus, the first and largest global public health initiative supported by the private sector. In 1988 the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) was created: alongside Rotary International we find in particular the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Centers for Polio Control and Prevention), which govern Public health in the United States of America, joined at the beginning of the twenty-first century by institutions including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).
In 1988, 350,000 children were infected with polio in 125 countries. In 1994, thanks to vaccination, the American continent was certified free of wild polioviruses (i.e., natural strains, as opposed to attenuated strains of oral poliovirus), followed in 2000 by the Western Pacific region (including China), and in 2002 by Before Europe, in 2014. By Southeast Asia (including India), and in 2020 by Africa.
40 children were affected in Pakistan and Afghanistan
In September 2024, 40 children contracted polio: 21 in Pakistan and 19 in Afghanistan. It is still the same group, although analysis laboratories have been established to examine wastewater for the possible presence of viruses that indicate the spread of the virus. 400 million children are vaccinated every year, and since 2021 more than 1 billion doses of the new polio vaccine 2 have been delivered. The good news is that viruses derived from the vaccine strain are in clear decline. 32 countries were affected in 2023, and today there are only two: the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Nigeria. Since the case was discovered in June 2024 in the Gaza Strip, 640,000 children under the age of 10 have been vaccinated in September 2024, and a new campaign will begin by the end of the year.
Five good reasons to “end polio”
Since the first vaccination campaign in the Philippines in 1979, Rotary and its partners have reduced the number of polio cases by 99.9%. Thus, there is only 0.1% left to eradicate polio, as indicated by the global campaign launched by Rotary International… on October 24, 2023. There are five good reasons to eliminate the disease. To change people's lives: 19 million people can now walk, who would otherwise be paralyzed, and 1.5 million people who would otherwise have died are still alive. To invest in the future: If polio eradication stops today, polio could rebound and paralyze 200,000 children annually by 2035. To improve children's health: Polio surveillance networks and vaccination campaigns allow children to be monitored for other health problems, such as deficiency Vitamins and measles. Which can be treated earlier. To reduce health care costs: Global efforts to eradicate the disease have already saved more than $27 billion in health care costs since 1988, and should avoid spending an additional $14 billion by 2050. Finally, let's write a page in history: polio will become It is the second disease. The disease that affects humans after smallpox to be eradicated.
Gabriel Henri Theolot
