25 August 2020 1 Min Read
Africa is officially wild polio free, says independent body
in Africa by TimesLIVE
Since the last wild polio case was detected on August 21 2016 in Nigeria, the government has organised more than a dozen supplementary immunisation campaigns with oral polio vaccine, worked on strengthening routine immunisation and improved its polio surveillance networks to reach more children.
Image: Flickr/ Center for Disease Control via The Conversation
Image: Flickr/ Center for Disease Control via The Conversation
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After decades of the disease posing a serious health-care crisis in Africa, the Africa Regional Certification Commission has declared the continent a wild polio free zone.
BBC reported that the milestone marks a significant victory for managing the communicable disease, with more than 95% of the African population immunised against the potentially deadly virus with paralysis as a defining characteristic.
Nigeria was the last country with a reported case of wild polio, leaving Afghanistan and Pakistan the only two countries in the world to still have cases of the virus strain.
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