On Tuesday, August 30 at 19:30 GMT:
World wide, new outbreaks of poliovirus are threatening to set again many years of progress made in practically eradicating the illness.
The newest circumstances are worrying for public well being officers who say the unfold of the virus is being aided by the decline in childhood immunisation as a result of COVID-19 pandemic and numerous types of vaccine scepticism.
In current months, poliovirus has been present in New York state, London and different locations the place the illness had been regarded as a relic of the previous.
Two years in the past, Africa was declared free of untamed poliovirus. However this yr, new circumstances have been detected in Malawi and Mozambique. In Afghanistan and Pakistan – the 2 remaining nations the place polio is taken into account endemic – positive aspects made by eradication campaigns have been reversed.
Polio is a extremely infectious illness with no treatment. Infections that end in everlasting paralysis are uncommon, and a few circumstances may be deadly. Polio spreads by way of person-to-person contact, is basically asymptomatic, and primarily impacts kids beneath 5 years of age.
Polio epidemics have been as soon as a widespread supply of public concern throughout the early twentieth century. The illness paralysed an estimated 600,000 folks every year world wide by the Nineteen Fifties. International circumstances dropped after the event of the primary polio vaccine in 1955.
On this episode of The Stream, we’ll take a look at the brand new rise in polio circumstances and what’s being accomplished to cease its unfold.
On this episode of The Stream, we communicate with:
Dr. Hamid Jafari, @Dr_HamidJafari
Director of polio eradication, WHO Jap Mediterranean Regional Workplace (EMRO)
Wesley Hazlitt
President, Put up-Polio Community in Manitoba
Dr. Rose Gana Fomban Leke
Chair, African Regional Fee for the Certification of the Eradication of Poliomyelitis (ARCC)
