At 5 pm, the historic message is expected to be announced: 32 years after the WHO's global fight to eradicate polio began, Africa is officially free of the virus.
- The last step was to go through the updated annual reports from all African countries, and it happened last week. So now it is safe to announce that wild polio has been eradicated in Africa, says Abdelhalim Abdallah, communicator for polio issues at the WHO's Africa office in Brazzaville, to TT.
In fact, the continent has been polio-free since August 2016, when the last known case was registered in northern Nigeria. But only now can the WHO say with certainty that there is no endemic spread.
"Huge milestone"The disease has previously been behind countless cases of death, paralysis and lifelong disabilities, especially in poorer countries. But thanks to extensive vaccination programs, polio has today been transferred to the history books of most of the world's countries. Following the WHO's Africa message, the virus is now expected to spread only endemically in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
- It is a huge milestone, the biggest success for public health in Africa since the eradication of smallpox. It proves that it is feasible to eradicate a disease, says Abdallah.
- But it is also important to highlight that the world will never be completely protected from polio until we have reached a global extinction. Viruses do not respect boundaries.
A few cases of vaccine-derived polio are still detected around the world each year, where the vaccine has developed into an active virus. However, this is very rare.