World Polio Day: a call to wipe out the disease

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 24 (ACN) Every October 24, World Polio Day, is an opportunity to renew the commitment to eradicate the disease globally, an effort for which it is essential to continue with vaccination and maintain epidemiological surveillance actions.

The date is a reminder that as long as there is an infected child, infants in all countries are at risk of contracting polio, and if it is not eliminated from the last remaining pockets, it could re-emerge throughout the world.

In 1988, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution on the global eradication of polio, which marked the creation of the Global Eradication Initiative, and since then cases of wild poliovirus infection have declined by more than 99 %, reports the World Health Organization (WHO).

However, the disease is endemic in parts of Afghanistan and Pakistan, this year Malawi and Israel diagnosed the first cases in three decades, and the detection of the virus in sewage in New York and London shows that it remains a health threat.

Polio cannot be cured, but it can be prevented by vaccination, hence, in view of the risk it represents for nations, the call from health authorities is to maintain high immunization coverage and a strong infrastructure for epidemiological surveillance, as well as to be prepared in the event of an outbreak.

Regarding the application of immunogens, Cuba is the only country that applies the vaccine against poliomyelitis in a campaign, which protects against contracting the disease, favors that in a short period of time children are immunized and guarantees that the virus has been eliminated since 1962.

In that year the nation became the first country in Latin America to declare polio-free territory, an achievement that would be certified in 1994 by the WHO and the Pan American Health Organization

Currently, the under-70 population is protected against this highly contagious disease, caused by a poliovirus that mainly affects under-fives, and which in one out of every 200 infections causes irreversible paralysis.

This World Polio Day, which commemorates the birth of the physician and virologist Jonas Edward Salk, the U.S. researcher who led the first team to develop a vaccine against the disease, is another moment to commit to the 2022-2026 strategy, which sets out a roadmap for the sustainable eradication of polioviruses worldwide.