According to Rotary, there has been historic progress this year, with Nigeria and all of Africa going a full year without a case of polio. The message to world leaders is clear: Support the final push to achieve eradication now while the goal has never been closer, or face the potential consequences of a new polio pandemic that could affect millions of children within a decade. Participants will include Global Polio Eradication Initiative partners, celebrity ambassadors, polio survivors and others.
Advertisement
Continuing with this pace and ensuring quality campaigns in Karachi and Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering with Afghanistan, Pakistan will able to end the disease by the next year, he maintained. Through the support of the GPEI, more than two and a half billion children have been immunized, 13 million kids have been spared disability, and over 250,000 deaths from polio have been averted. The programme was moderated by BBC journalist Kim Ghattas, and also featured excerpts from the acclaimed Image Nation Abu Dhabi documentary film, Every Last Child, which provided glimpses from the front lines of the fight to end polio in Pakistan.
In order to boost population immunity of children between the ages of zero to five years, as well as achieve eradication status in 2017, Nigeria will continue to vaccinate children, irrespective of their previous immunization status. Health camps, mobile outreach that provides essential health services in addition to polio vaccines, are helping to reach more children and build trust in the program.
This will place Nigeria at the verge of eradicating polio as the World Health Organization (WHO) is set to formally pronounce the delisting of Nigeria as a polio-endemic country before President Muhammadu Buhari.
Worldwide community fears all the remarkable success of the world will be negated if Pakistan does not succeed in eradicating the remaining 1 percent of the disease.
“So, we’re making a huge dent”, Small said.
“The nationwide polio drive carried out in September showed the number of children who missed polio drops reduced to 100,000, parental refusal reduced from 3% to 0.07%, the number of infected districts decreased from 31 to 17 and the percentage of positive environment samples decreased from 34 to 20”. And if it does, polio will become the second human disease, following smallpox, to be wiped off the Earth and its eradication will be Sharif’s lasting legacy. The United States has been polio free since 1979.
She paid tributes to polio workers who have worked tirelessly in rough conditions to safeguard the children.
Advertisement
‘The club is still publicising the global campaign and is in the process of issuing posters to all the schools in the island to update them on Rotary’s progress towards winning the fight against polio’.
