Every October 24, people around the world join together to shed light on the importance of eradicating the devastatingly crippling disease of polio. Although polio is on the verge of being eliminated from the world with the introduction of effective vaccines in the 1950s and 1960s polio still remains prevalent in two parts of the world: northern Nigeria and the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.
India marked a milestone when the World Health Organization removed it from the list of polio-endemic countries in February after no new cases were reported for more than a year. In national campaigns that occur twice a year, 2 million volunteers travel to India's train stations, bus depots, temples, churches and mosques, armed with vials of polio vaccine. Although the nation must remain polio-free for three years before the WHO will certify that it has eradicated polio, India s polio eradication program appears promising.
"India's success is extraordinary," says ACSH s Dr. Gilbert Ross. "We need to see what was done in India applied to the two areas in which the virus still remains: Pakistan and Nigeria. And even though these two nations are plagued by political and religious upheaval, hopefully international public health officials can come together to extend the benefits to these countries as well and fundamentalists of various stripes will not impede progress in the final eradication of this dreaded disease.