Search This Blog

Translate

Featured Post

Whats in your cup of coffee?

Humanity runs on coffee - Unknown In the midst of all the addictions our world has to offer, coffee is one that has certainly stood the tes...

POLIO; The "PAN' and the "PAIN

Medic-ALL (09:01:2015) DISEASES

Just a few years ago “P-A-I-N’ was the acronym popularly used among medical students to recall the countries where Polio was endemic, but that changed a couple of years ago when the “I” which referred to the nation with the 2nd largest population in the world, India, left the likes of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria (P-A-N) on the list of countries that have never stopped Polio.

                              Nigeria aims to follow in the footsteps of India through increased government 
                              commitment and stakeholders support. Source: Global Polio Eradication Initiative website

It had been a much-anticipated moment as the World Health Organization notified the national authorities in India on 25 February 2012 that the country was officially removed from the list of countries with active transmission of endemic polio. This came weeks after India marked 12 months in which no Indian child had been paralyzed by polio. India has not seen a case since a 2-year-old girl in the state of West Bengal developed paralysis on 13 January 2011.

It is interesting to note that, as recent as 2009, India had the highest burden of polio cases in the world (741), more than the three other endemic countries combined. But the government resorted to extraordinary measures to reach children with the vaccine so much that the Polio eradication efforts became a most widely-recognized brand in India, with a Bollywood megastar as its public face.
Polio remains endemic in three countries – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Until poliovirus transmission is interrupted in these countries, all countries remain at risk of importation of polio, especially vulnerable countries.......CONTINUE READING HERE

Medic-ALL. Inc 2015

No comments:

Post a Comment

Please leave your comments here.

Popular in the Last 365 days