Africa declared free of wild polio in 'milestone' - BBC News
Africa declared free of wild polio in 'milestone' - BBC News |
- Africa declared free of wild polio in 'milestone' - BBC News
- COVID-19 vaccine research builds on US successes - US Embassy in Georgia
- It's important to monitor symptoms in children | Health - Coastal Point
| Africa declared free of wild polio in 'milestone' - BBC News Posted: 25 Aug 2020 12:00 AM PDT  By Naomi Scherbel-Ball  image copyrightAFPAfrica has been declared free from wild polio by the independent body, the Africa Regional Certification Commission. Polio usually affects children under five, sometimes leading to irreversible paralysis. Death can occur when breathing muscles are affected. Twenty-five years ago thousands of children in Africa were paralysed by the virus. The disease is now only found in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is no cure but the polio vaccine protects children for life. Nigeria is the last African country to be declared free from wild polio, having accounted for more than half of all global cases less than a decade ago.  The vaccination campaign in Nigeria involved a huge effort to reach remote and dangerous places under threat from militant violence and some health workers were killed in the process.
What is polio and has it now been eradicated in Africa?Polio is a virus which spreads from person to person, usually through contaminated water. It can lead to paralysis by attacking the nervous system. Two out of three strains of wild polio virus have been eradicated worldwide. On Tuesday, Africa has been declared free of the last remaining strain of wild poliovirus. More than 95% of Africa's population has now been immunised. This was one of the conditions that the Africa Regional Certification Commission set before declaring the continent free from wild polio.  Now only the vaccine-derived polio virus remains in Africa with 177 cases being identified this year. This is a rare form of the virus that mutates from the oral polio vaccine and can then spread to under-immunised communities. The World Health Organization (WHO) has identified a number of these cases in Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central African Republic and Angola.
How did Africa eliminate wild polio? image copyrightGetty ImagesWithout a cure a vaccine developed in 1952 by Dr Jonas Salk gave hope that children could be protected from the disease. In 1961, Albert Sabin pioneered the oral polio vaccine which has been used in most national immunisation programmes around the world. In 1996 poliovirus paralysed more than 75,000 children across the continent - every country was affected. That year Nelson Mandela launched the "Kick Polio Out of Africa" programme, mobilising millions of health workers who went village-to-village to hand-deliver vaccines. It was backed by a coalition of groups including Rotary International which had spearheaded the polio vaccination drive from the 1980s. Since 1996 billions of oral polio vaccines have been provided, averting an estimated 1.8 million cases of wild poliovirus.
What have the challenges been?The last communities at risk of polio live in some of the most complicated places to deliver immunisation campaigns. Nigeria is the last country in Africa to have reported a case of wild polio - in Borno state in Nigeria's remote north-east, and the epicentre of the Boko Haram insurrection, in 2016. At the time it was a frustrating set-back as the country had made huge progress and had gone two years without any cases being identified. Outside Nigeria, the last place to have seen a case of polio was in the Puntland region of Somalia in 2014. Conflict with the Islamist militant group Boko Haram has made parts of Nigeria particularly difficult to reach, Borno state in particular. More than two million people have been displaced by the fighting. Frontline workers, 95% of whom were women, managed to navigate areas of conflict like Lake Chad by boat and deliver vaccines to remote communities. Widespread rumours and misinformation about the vaccine have also slowed down immunisation efforts. In 2003, Kano and a number of other northern states suspended immunisations following reports by Muslim religious leaders that the vaccine was contaminated with an anti-fertility agent as part of an American plot to make Muslim women infertile. Laboratory tests by Nigerian scientists dismissed the accusations. Vaccine campaigns resumed the following year, but the rumours persisted. In 2013 nine female polio vaccinators were killed in two shootings thought to be carried out by Boko Haram at health centres in Kano. It has taken decades to achieve eradication and overcome suspicion around the vaccine.
How polio survivors made a differenceWinning the trust of communities has been key. Misbahu Lawan Didi, president of the Nigerian Polio Survivors Association, says that the role of survivors has been crucial in persuading people to accept the campaign.  "Many rejected the polio vaccine, but they see how much we struggle to reach them, sometimes crawling large distances, to speak to them. We ask them: 'Don't you think it is important for you to protect your child not to be like us?'" From polio survivors, to traditional and religious leaders, school teachers, parents, volunteers and health workers, a huge coalition developed to defeat polio. Working together they travelled to remote communities to immunise children.
How serious is polio?Polio, or poliomyelitis, mainly affects children aged under five. Initial symptoms include fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness of the neck and pains in the limbs. It also invades the nervous system and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralysed, 5% to 10% of people die when their breathing muscles become immobilised.
Could wild polio return?Polio can be easily imported into a country that is polio free and from there it can spread rapidly among under-immunised populations. This happened in Angola, which despite decades of civil war, defeated polio in 2001. The country remained free from polio for four years until 2005 when a number of cases were thought to have been brought in from outside the country. The WHO says that it is important countries remain vigilant and avoid complacency until there is global eradication. If they let down their defence by failing to vaccinate, then wild polio could once again begin to spread quickly. For all types of polio to be eliminated, including vaccine-derived polio, vaccination efforts will need to continue alongside surveillance, to protect children from being paralysed by the disease in the future.
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| COVID-19 vaccine research builds on US successes - US Embassy in Georgia Posted: 21 Sep 2020 11:30 AM PDT
 U.S. leadership in vaccine development and infectious disease treatment is vital to ongoing efforts to combat COVID-19 worldwide. U.S. research is responsible for vaccines that protect the world's citizens from deadly infectious diseases like yellow fever, measles and polio. In addition, the U.S. continues to invest billions worldwide to combat HIV/AIDS. Lessons learned from these U.S. scientific breakthroughs are aiding efforts to rapidly develop a safe and effective vaccine to fight the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, some research has focused on developing a potential COVID-19 vaccine based on an existing measles vaccine. In addition, U.S. investments in global health programs, including through the U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and the Global Health Security Agenda, have built international partnerships that are now supporting the global response against COVID-19. "There is no nation that has been or will be as deeply committed to delivering vaccines all around the world as the United States of America," Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said on September 2, regarding U.S. efforts to discover a safe, effective COVID-19 vaccine. The U.S. government has allocated $20.5 billion to the global fight against the disease, including billions for vaccine research. Those efforts build on the historic achievements of scientists working in the United States on the global fight against infectious diseases. Yellow feverYellow fever afflicted people for centuries, yet no one knew its cause or how to stop it. Millions suffered from its symptoms, including bleeding, organ failure and sometimes death. In 1900, U.S. Army surgeon Walter Reed led a commission that discovered that mosquitoes transmit the virus that causes yellow fever. The breakthrough allowed scientists to study the virus. In 1937, Max Theiler, a South African working at the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, developed a yellow fever vaccine using chicken embryos. The vaccine is still in use today and has inoculated hundreds of millions of people. PolioPolio paralyzed hundreds of thousands of children annually before Jonas Salk, an American physician, medical researcher and virologist, developed a vaccine in the 1950s. The Roosevelt Foundation tested the effectiveness of Salk's vaccine in observed control trials across the United States, in which more than 1 million schoolchildren participated. Based on the positive results of those trials, the vaccine was licensed for use in the United States on April 12, 1955. In 1988, the United States helped launch the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. And since the 1990s, the U.S. Congress has invested hundreds of millions of dollars to fight polio worldwide, contributing to a more than 99 percent drop in cases worldwide between 1988 and 2013. In 2020, Africa announced that it was free of wild polio. MeaslesJohn Enders, an American biomedical scientist, developed a vaccine for measles in 1963. The disease had killed an estimated 2.6 million people worldwide each year.  Five years later, in 1968, Maurice Hilleman improved the measles vaccine, developing a version still used today. By 2018, annual measles deaths globally had dropped to 142,000, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Hilleman went on to develop more than 40 vaccines, including for mumps, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningitis, pneumonia and rubella. HIV/AIDSThe U.S. launched PEPFAR in 2003, the single largest commitment by any country to tackle a single disease in history. Through PEPFAR, the U.S. has invested more than $85 billion in the global response to HIV infections. This effort has saved at least 18 million lives, prevented millions of infections and accelerated progress toward controlling the epidemic in more than 50 countries. Dr. Nelson Michael, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, helped launched PEPFAR and has helped in the development of vaccines for Ebola and Zika. He is now working on vaccines to protect against HIV and the COVID-19 virus. "We made a big impact," Michael said of PEPFAR. "People are alive today. And they're thriving."  |
| It's important to monitor symptoms in children | Health - Coastal Point Posted: 01 Sep 2020 12:00 AM PDT  Acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) is a rare polio-like neurologic condition that typically affects children. Since it was first recognized in 2014, there has been an increase in the number of cases in even-numbered years, which could mean higher case numbers expected this year (2020). The peak typically occurs in late July to early August but can continue through the late fall. As of July 31, there had been 16 confirmed cases of AFM in the United States. None of those children had been in Delaware, but neighboring states have had cases reported. Since the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) started tracking AFM in 2014, there have been a total of 633 confirmed cases nationwide. The CDC recently sent out an alert on AFM due to the expectation of higher numbers of cases this year. With COVID-19 still causing illness and hospitalization, there is a concern that parents may delay taking their children to the doctor's office or hospital. It is extremely important to recognize possible symptoms of AFM so a child can be evaluated and treated as rapidly as possible. AFM is believed to be caused by specific strains of a virus, most commonly enterovirus D68 and enterovirus A71. Another virus, coxsackievirus A16, has been reported in one case of AFM. Strains of enterovirus and coxsackievirus are very common, and tend to cause respiratory and gastrointestinal symptoms, but only a very small number of those infected will develop AFM. Understanding the symptoms Children are more likely to develop symptoms than adults. AFM is a serious illness that can lead to life-long paralysis and even death, especially if there is a delay in diagnosis and treatment. Usually, patients develop respiratory symptoms and/or a fever about one week before developing weakness, sometimes associated with pain. The weakness may be seen in a child as difficulty raising the arms or rising from the floor/seated position. It is important to seek medical care if you or your child develop muscle weakness, drooping of the face or eyelids, difficulty moving the eyes, or trouble speaking or swallowing. Your doctor may note decreased reflexes in the legs and arms. The ability to breathe can be affected in AFM, and 25 percent of patients need to be placed on a ventilator to support breathing as they recover. At this time, there is no cure for AFM, but symptoms can be improved with use of a medication called IVIg, which is administered in the hospital. Many children do recover fully or have minor residual symptoms. Rarely, a child can continue to have severe lifelong disability. The same precautions to avoid COVID-19 also help prevent AFM, including washing hands often with soap and water, avoiding close contact with those that are ill, and attempting to decrease touching your face. Cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces (including toys, tables, doorknobs) can help decrease the spread of viral infections. Talk to your family and children about AFM and make sure any limb weakness is reported immediately so you can take action and seek treatment. Additional information can be found at www.cdc.gov/acute-flaccid-myelitis.  |
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