Africa is Now On Track, One Year Polio Free

According to the UNICEF, this milestone is a testament to the significant progress that the African continent has been experiencing for the past years.

11 that Somalia has not recorded a single case of Polio in the past year. However, experts are still nervous about a possible resurrection of the disease, so much so that even the Global Polio Eradication Initiative announced the cause for celebration under a doubtful title “Is Africa Polio-Free?”

According to WHO, if polio is eradicated from the world, there will be an estimated $50-billion savings over the next 20 years and if failed, it could result with up to 200,000 new cases a year within ten years.

However, it has also warned there may have been cases that had gone unrecorded in Africa. Undetected low level transmission in Somalia can not be ruled out, the team concluded, and outbreak response activities are continuing throughout the country.

Once data verification is completed, Nigeria is set to be dropped from the list of polio-endemic countries, leaving only Afghanistan and Pakistan. “Unless we get rid of the insurgency, we can not be sure we will eradicate polio”.

Initial symptoms can include fever and pains in the limbs, and can lead to permanent paralysis.

The next two years will be critical for Africa as it seeks to join the Americas, Europe and South-Eastern Asia in being declared polio-free.

Polio is disease that can very well be prevented by taking a vaccine but unfortunately there is no cure for it. It is usually transmitted from person-to-person and often through feces as well and primarily affects children under the age of five.

While today’s milestone is extraordinary, it is not an endpoint.

“The chance for re-emergence is there, but we will be vigilant”, said Somalia Health Ministry director general Dr. Abdiqani Omar in an interview with Voice of America.

Omar says health workers have not been able vaccinate or spread awareness campaigns to areas controlled by the al-Shabab militant group. In the past two weeks, the Catholic Church in Kenya opposed a countrywide polio vaccination campaign, saying the vaccines needed to be tested by an independent body to ascertain their safety. “Nigeria and the many other African countries that remain at risk for polio must maintain high-quality surveillance, work ever-harder to improve the quality of vaccination campaigns and act decisively, should further outbreaks occur”. Pakistan is accountable for 28 of those cases and the rest were diagnosed in Afghanistan.