The polio eradication programme in Africa directly combated a severe debilitating disease. But it also provided a platform for broader healthcare services on the continent.
An emergency polio ward in Boston in 1955 equipped with iron lungs. These pressurized respirators acted as breathing muscles for polio victims, often children, who were paralyzed.
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Polio was nearly eradicated with the Salk vaccine in 1955. At the time, little was known about this mysterious disease that paralyzed and sometimes killed young children.
The oral polio vaccine is most commonly used in the developing world, despite one big problem.
CDC/Alan Janssen, MSPH
A challenge in eradicating polio comes from a version of the vaccine itself, which relies on live but attenuated virus. Rationally designing a new vaccine could help get rid of polio once and for all.
Monitoring sewage for virus allows for a quick public health response if any polio is detected.
AP Photo/Matt Rourke
Polio can be circulating through a community long before anyone is paralyzed. Monitoring sewage for the virus lets public health officials short-circuit this ‘silent transmission.’
What will it take to finish polio off in the last three countries where it persists?
AP Photo/B.K. Bangash
Pakistan had only eight new diagnoses of polio in 2017. The virus’ days look numbered – but health workers have their work cut out for them to eradicate the devastating disease once and for all.
The polio vaccination campaign in Nigeria is being hampered.
Flickr/Center for Disease Control
Polio for years has been close to becoming eradicated, with the entire continent of Africa going two years without a reported case – until early August. Here’s why eradication is hard but attainable.
Nigerian women who formed part of the country’s previous polio immunisation campaign.
Global Polio Eradication Initiative
Nigeria’s strategy to eliminate polio was so effective that it was duplicated to deal with ebola. So why did the country take so long to get off the list of polio-endemic countries?
Senegalese Mamou Tiang, who suffers from polio, begs for money outside a bank on a sidewalk in the capital Dakar.
Nic Bothma/EPA