{"id":10818,"date":"2020-08-27T09:07:41","date_gmt":"2020-08-27T06:07:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=10818"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:13","slug":"who-declares-africa-wild-polio-free-told-to-remain-vigilant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/08\/27\/who-declares-africa-wild-polio-free-told-to-remain-vigilant\/","title":{"rendered":"WHO Declares Africa Wild Polio Free, told to Remain Vigilant"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Africa has been declared wild polio-free after a three-decade campaign against the disease that once paralysed about 75,000 children on the continent every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The highly contagious disease is the second to be eradicated since smallpox 40 years ago, the World Health Organisation (WHO) Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said on Tuesday. However, a minor strain still infects hundreds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Polio, also known as poliomyelitis, is an infectious disease caused by a virus that attacks the nervous system causing paralysis in children. It is transmitted from person-to-person mainly through faecal matter entering the mouth with children under five years being more likely to contract the disease than any other group.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that five to 10 percent die when their breathing muscles become immobilised. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theeastafrican.co.ke\/tea\/science-health\/-who-declares-africa-wild-polio-free-told-to-remain-vigilant--1925794\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa has been declared wild polio-free after a three-decade campaign against the disease that once paralysed about 75,000 children on the continent every year. The highly contagious disease is the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":10819,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10818\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10819"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}