The African continent has been declared one year free of the wild poliovirus, with no new cases identified since 11 August 2014.
The African continent has been declared one year free of the wild poliovirus, with no new cases identified since 11 August 2014.
This significant event has been greeted with cautious optimism by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), a public-private partnership aiming to eradicate polio worldwide. GPEI is supported and led by national governments; the UK is the second biggest donor.
Polio remains endemic in three countries – Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria. The most recent known case of wild poliovirus in Nigeria was identified over one year ago, on 24 July 2014.
However, before the country can be removed from the endemic list, the samples still in the laboratory need to be tested and confirmed free of polio. These results are expected to be released in several weeks’ time.
This is the closest Nigeria has ever been to eradicating polio. With the help of the government, partners, community leaders and health workers across the country, Nigeria managed to decrease the number of polio cases by 92% between 2013-14.
For the World Health Organization’s entire African Region to be declared polio-free, Nigeria must continue for two more years without a case. This will require strong surveillance and effective campaigns targeting remote and insecure areas of the country.
Nigeria’s well-developed polio infrastructure includes a centralised Emergency Operations Centre, contact tracing as well as surveillance capacity. This has been influential in preventing the recent Ebola outbreak, and highlights how the polio programme can leave a legacy behind for other diseases.
Experts hope that by 2018, polio will be eradicated globally, becoming one of the greatest achievements in human history and having a lasting impact in global health.
Dr Hemant Shukla, who supports polio eradication for the Horn of Africa at World Health Organization said: “One year with no reported cases of polio is great news, but this progress needs to be treated with caution- a lot of very hard work is needed before we can be fully confident that polio is gone from the Horn of Africa.”