The Eradication of Polio

Polio, a word that still strikes fear into those who can remember, is being erradicated. At least according to the World Health Organization. The number of world wide cases has been reduced by 50% between the last two years of the 20th century, with an even more encouraging 99% reduction of the dreaded Type II polio.

"We have forecast that by the end of this year, less than 10 countries will remain endemic for polio virus and within two years, we will be down to zero," said Dr. Bjorn Melgaard, director of vaccines and biologicals at WHO. Despite various controversies regarding vaccines and the side effects and possible iatrogenic issues involved with them, this is a major victory in the healthcare of a world wide population that used to see its children suffering and dying from this paralytic disease.

Although there is tremendous controversy surrounding the mutation of the polio virus and how many strains truly exist today, the basic facts stated by the WHO say that there are three main virus types responsible for polio. They believe that it is possible they may have totally eliminated one of those three. Scientific methods have generally stayed conservative in declaring a virus "extinct" giving it at least one year with no cases reported. The last case of type II polio was seen in October of 1999. This type of polio is the most devastating as the percentage of paralyzed survivors is 1/2%. Other polios usually have a paralyzation ratio of 1 in 10,000.

The attack by WHO against polio, particularly type II was begun in 1998 with a strong push toward vaccination of areas where the disease was endemic in 1999. One of the larger countries that lived with this health concern was India. The results have been remarkable with the cases in 1998 numbering close to 2,000 and with a rate so far in 2001 of only 10. There were two cases, in fact the first cases of polio reported in Europe since 1998, reported in Bulgaria this year, but these two patients were both identified as being members of Gypsy communities and are considered to have been missed by the massive vaccination efforts of WHO.

WHO reports that one of the most difficult issues in reaching populations to vaccinate them, is of course in war stricken countries. Currently they have requested a cease-fire in Afghanistan, believing that approximately 5.7 million people had not been vaccinated. This cease-fire is scheduled for the third weekend in May and the vaccination campaign will continue.

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