Nigeria celebrated the first year in its history without a single case of polio on Friday, reaching a milestone that would have been thought unlikely a decade ago.
This means Nigeria could come off the list of countries where polio is endemic. The World Health Organization is confirming test samples from areas that had once been affected by the disease. Once the country goes three years without a diagnosis, then Nigeria can be certified as polio-free.
Until the 1950s, polio affected thousands of people a year around the world. The poliomyelitis virus attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection.
According to WHO, polio mainly affects young children and spreads in areas with poor sanitation. There is no cure for the disease and population-wide vaccination can stop polio.
Polio outbreaks were a problem in Nigeria because some northern areas imposed a year-long vaccine ban in 2003. Government and religious leaders in the largely Islamic north claimed that vaccines were contaminated, in an effort for westerners to spread sterility and HIV/AIDS among Muslims.
Leaders in the country pledged in 2009 to get parents to get children vaccinated, but Boko Haram insurgents in the northeast waged bloody battles to capture territory for an Islamist state. By 2012, Nigeria had made little progress on polio and had half of the world’s cases.
Nigeria’s capital Abuja waged immunization campaigns that were able to reach children in previously unreachable areas and new polio cases began to fall.
The next milestone is waiting a few more weeks to see if any cases are found in Africa. If there are no cases, then the continent will be polio-free for an entire year. The last African case was reported in Somalia on August 11, 2014.
These achievements mean polio may be eliminated from the planet. This would be major milestone as only the second infectious disease to be eradicated after smallpox.
Eyes turn to Pakistan, where most of the world’s few remaining polio cases occur. Pakistan has reported 28 polio cases since the beginning of this year.
About $1 billion a year is being spent by partners of a worldwide polio eradication initiative, which was first launched in 1988, and current partners include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, World Health Organization and Rotary International, according to Bloomberg.
“It’s an extraordinary achievement. It really shows the value of government leadership and taking ownership of the programme,” said Carol Pandak, director of Rotary International’s polio program, according to the Guardian.
Pandak says it’s now Pakistan’s turn to eliminate polio. “When you’re the last country in a region to still have polio, there’s a lot of pressure from the global community and from your neighbors,” she said.
Back when the polio eradication initiative was founded, the disease was endemic in 125 countries and caused paralysis in nearly 1,000 children a day. In contrast, in 2015 so far, there have only been 33 new cases worldwide — 28 of them in Pakistan and five in Afghanistan.
