Africa to be declared free of wild polio after decades of work
Source: The Guardian
Africa is expected to be declared free from wild polio, after decades of work by a coalition of international health bodies, national and local governments, community volunteers and survivors.
Four years after the last recorded cases of wild polio in northern Nigeria, the Africa Regional Certification Commission (ARCC) is expected to certify that the continent is free of the virus, which can cause irreversible paralysis and in some cases death.
The achievement is the result of a campaign to vaccinate and monitor children in Borno State, the final front of polio eradication efforts on the continent, and the heart of the jihadist insurgency in Nigeria.
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Despite the progress, however, 16 countries in the region are currently experiencing small outbreaks of vaccine-derived polio,which can occur among underimmunised communities.
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/aug/25/africa-to-be-declared-free-of-wild-polio-after-decades-of-work
From November, about that vaccine-derived polio:
New cases of polio linked to the oral vaccine have been reported in four African countries and more children are now being paralysed by vaccine-derived viruses than those infected by viruses in the wild, according to global health numbers.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners identified nine new cases caused by the vaccine in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and Angola last week. Along with seven other African countries with outbreaks, cases have also been reported in Asia. In Afghanistan and Pakistan polio remains endemic, and in Pakistan officials have been accused of covering up vaccine-related cases.
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In developing countries the oral vaccine is used due to its low cost and accessibility, needing only two drops per dose. In western countries, a more expensive, injectable version of the vaccine – which contains an inactivated virus incapable of causing the disease – is used as a preventative.
The onset has been caused by a type 2 virus contained in the vaccine. Type 2 is a wild virus that was eliminated years ago, but in rare cases the live virus in oral polio vaccines can mutate into a form capable of igniting new outbreaks of the disease.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/nov/28/polio-outbreaks-in-four-african-countries-caused-by-mutation-of-strain-in-vaccine
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