Polio Eradication- A Common Global Agenda

Date: April 28, 2016

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The World Health Organisation (WHO) is spearheading an integrated drive to eradicate the polio virus. It has launched a new vaccine swap in 150 countries and territories for the purpose. The move can be considered as the mortal blow to all the wild variants of polio.

Even though a variant of the disease, type 2, has been successfully eradicated since 1999, yet the immunisation programme carries a dosage against it. The medical fraternity finds it futile and opines that the countries grappling with the problem should shift from Trivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (type 1, 2 and 3) to Bivalent Oral Polio Vaccine (type 1 and 3). Therefore, the WHO has organised a synchronised switch to the two-strain vaccine between 17thApril, 2016 and 1st May, 2016.

The Polio Immunisation Programme has rather been a global success as just 12 cases have been recorded worldwide this year (in Pakistan and Afghanistan). India has already been certified polio-free. Such cheering news makes the global drive to end polio by 2018, achievable.

The WHO’s Director of Polio Eradication, Mr Michel Zaffran says that if the success is not leveraged, the virus can spread across borders again. He also voices the global commitment to wipe the virus off the face of the planet by saying that the job has not been done and will not be done until the virus has been fully eradicated.

News Source: DNA India | The Hindu
Image Source: RIBI Image Library/Flickr (Representational Image)

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