{"id":11497,"date":"2020-11-05T00:41:20","date_gmt":"2020-11-04T21:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=11497"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:31:18","slug":"how-ending-polio-in-africa-has-had-positive-spinoffs-for-public-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2020\/11\/05\/how-ending-polio-in-africa-has-had-positive-spinoffs-for-public-health\/","title":{"rendered":"How Ending Polio in Africa Has Had Positive Spinoffs for Public Health"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/africa-is-within-reach-of-being-declared-a-polio-free-region-44786\">Polio<\/a>&nbsp;is a highly infectious disease. It\u2019s caused by a virus that enters the body through the mouth. The virus then multiplies in the intestine and attacks the central nervous system \u2013 causing paralysis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Polio was one of the most dreaded diseases in the world in the 20th century. Four decades ago, an estimated 350,000 people were paralysed each year by the poliovirus in&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news-room\/fact-sheets\/detail\/poliomyelitis\">more than 125 countries<\/a>. This led the World Health Assembly in 1988 to adopt a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio, drawing inspiration from the eradication of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/health-topics\/smallpox#tab=tab_1\">smallpox<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The global programme to&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/polioeradication.org\/\">eradicate polio<\/a>&nbsp;is spearheaded by a number of actors. These include national governments, the World Health Organisation (WHO), multiple development agencies, and healthcare workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/africa-is-within-reach-of-being-declared-a-polio-free-region-44786\">strategy<\/a>&nbsp;involves widespread vaccination as part of routine healthcare services as well as mass vaccination campaigns. Sensitive surveillance to detect and rapidly respond to polio cases is also key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This initiative has been extremely successful. The number of people paralysed by polio decreased by 99.9% \u2013 from 350,000 in 1988 to 175 in 2019. During the same period, the number of polio endemic countries fell from more than 125 to only two: Afghanistan and Pakistan. A country is endemic when there\u2019s widespread circulation of polio. <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/how-ending-polio-in-africa-has-had-positive-spinoffs-for-public-health-148857\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Polio&nbsp;is a highly infectious disease. It\u2019s caused by a virus that enters the body through the mouth. The virus then multiplies in the intestine and attacks the central nervous system&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11498,"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-11497","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\/11497","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=11497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}