The eradication of polio
1.0 Abstract
Poliomyelitis remains one of the highly infectious diseases caused by the poliovirus and can be spread from one person to another. Polio dates back into history, as was once reported in ancient Egypt painting and carvings. It presents a wide array of symptoms from mild to respiratory illness to chronic paralysis. Due to its disabling and life-threatening impact on human life, intensive research has been conducted to establish a potential vaccine to curb its effects on the world. The global spread of polio and its effects called for advanced measures to address the pandemic, causing severe health problems. In 1988 the world health organization assembly resolved to develop a vaccine that would eradicate the contagious polio infection had become a serious public health problem (Martinez-Bakker King, and Rohani, 2015). By this time, polio had spread globally, with 125 countries globally having recorded polio infection cases. Having no potential cure for poliomyelitis, a vaccine could be the best option in preventing the infections and death resulting from polio. Poliomyelitis had gained significant attention across all medical fields as has it become a major world problem. The introduction of formalin-inactivated and Salk polio vaccine has been of considerable benefit in eradicating polio globally. Adopting the oral polio vaccine played a critical role in reducing the disease’s impact, which had remained a major public health concern for many years. Polio was once one of the feared contagious diseases due to its sudden striking and paralyzing impact on children.
2.0 Introduction
In the 20th century, the outbreak of poliomyelitis became severe as infections started spreading across Europe and the United States. By the start of 1916, the United States public health raised concerns because polio infections became severe health problems. More than 27000 cases of polio had been reported across the country, but high mortality cases raised attention on the impact of the condition. The health authorities realized the situation was out of control as they had to deal with the polio outbreak each summer. This trend impacted the urge to develop a vaccine to reduce mortality rates associated with the condition. This saw the number of infections decline rapidly after the Salk and Sabin vaccines (Baicus, 2012). However, there was a need for advanced measures as polio had spread across the globe and become a public health concern. This saw the world health organization assembly taking stern measures and embarking into research to find a long-lasting solution to polio infections. Since the world initiated global poliomyelitis eradication in early 1988, significant steps have been made to reduce the impact of the contagious infection in the world (Zambon and Martin, 2018). Polio eradication has been a major success in the medical field, and public health sheds light on the world health organization’s steps to eradicate some contagious health conditions. Since the [proposal to eliminate poliomyelitis from the world, the world health organization has made a significant milestone in eradicating the condition (Baicus, 2012). Since the oral polio vaccine was developed, it has continued to play a critical role in eliminating poliomyelitis cases. The vaccine work by generating an immune response that helps in preventing individuals from contradicting polio. However, the weakening of OPV is unstable and, in rare instances, revert to a contagious and may lead to an outbreak of paralytic poliomyelitis.
3.0 History of polio eradication
Poliomyelitis is one of the highly infectious diseases that majorly affects children under the age of 5 years. The disease is mainly transmitted from one person to another through faecal-oral routes or contaminated water and food. Once an individual is infected, the infection invades the nervous system, thus causing paralysis. Symptoms of polio include fever, fatigue, stiffness, and pain in the limbs. There has been a significant reduction in polio cases from 1988 from an estimated 350 000 cases to almost 3 cases reported in 2018. However, polio continues to pose a serious threat because as long as one child is infected, children in the whole world remain at high risk of contracting this contagious disease. Therefore, failure to eradicate polio from the world may lead to reinfection, and more than 20000 cases could be reported each year. Polio has no cure, which has made scientists and researchers in the medical field dig deep to establish vaccines to help in curbing the spread of polio in the world.
Polio was one of the world’s lethal diseases that had an adverse impact on the world population leaving many people dead, and others paralyzed. The world health organization partnered with the global polio eradication program, becoming the largest public-private partnership for health that saw polio infection reduce by at least 99%. Although polio was almost eradicated, it still exists in some of the world’s poorest and marginalized countries her5e it stalks vulnerable children (World Health Organization, 2019). The global polio eradication initiative’s main goal was to ensure it reached out to the very child with the polio vaccine and ensure the world is free from polio for a better future. The disease continues to affect children under age 5, with one in every 200 new infections leading to permanent paralyzed. Since the adoption of polio eradication measures in 1988, the annual polio infection burden has significantly reduced. The adoption of sustainable and coordinated efforts have seen a significant reduction.
The eradicating polio journey started back in 1988 after polio became a major public health concern worldwide. The world health assembly adopted a plan for the global eradication of polio, which saw the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (World Health Organization, 2019). The initiative compromised different bodies such as the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention Center, UNICEF, Rotary International, and WHO (Chard et al., 2020). The group would later be joined by The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Vaccine Alliance. The initiative’s main goals were to eradicate polio by establishing a vaccine that would prevent the wild poliovirus and subsequent challenges that would result from the re-emergence of polio. By the time the polio eradication initiative was initiated, previous measures were taken to control the virus, which had caused a serious threat to public health around the world. One urgent medical revolution was adopted in 1950 by Salk and Sabin to reduce increased cases of infection and mortality rates. Polio had already become a global pandemic, thus calling for long-lasting measures (Chard et al., 2020). Although the Sabin and Salk vaccine played a critical role in reducing the infection rate from 58000 to around 5600, it was not until 1988 when the world woke up to find long-lasting solutions.
4.0 Development of polio vaccine
For many years, polio proved to be a major health concern, leading to different stakeholders taking measures for the long-lasting vaccine since polio had no cure. Brodie initiated the polio vaccine’s first trials in 1935 using an inactivated vaccine containing 10% formalin suspension of IPV extracted from the infected monkey spinal cord. However, the trials never yielded any tangible results. In 1954 Salk produced the first inactivated polio vaccine using virus strains grown on monkey kidney cells and inactivated with formalin. However, this was never good enough as polio continue to claim a high number of lives. The vaccine sued different strains of Mahoney, type 1, MEF-1, and Saukett. However, after the Salk vaccine was licensed, the worst happened as the vaccine virus’s inactivation failed in cutter laboratories. This resulted in 260 cases of poliomyelitis with 10 death and PV type 1 infection.
The world saw a need to eradicate polio and find a vaccine that would help in this process because most of the past trials had failed to achieve long-term results. The partnership of the world health organization and other stakeholders played a critical role in reducing polio infection cases by 99%. In 1988 the world health assembly announced plans to eradicate polio by the eve of 2000 (Mehndiratta, Mehndiratta, and Pande, 2014). Significant progress has been achieved credit to tireless efforts by the WHO to prevent widespread cases of polio. However, 13 years down the line since the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative’s early objective, polio continues to persist. This caused the world health assembly to converge urgent meeting in 2012 that declared a polio eradication strategies as a world public health programmatic emergency. There is notable progress in efforts taken to eradicate polio as type 2 poliovirus has been eliminated. Since the adoption of GPEI, the number of polio infection have significantly decreased by over 99%. The Americas were declared polio-free in 1994, followed by the western pacific in 2000 and European countries by June in 2002. By the start of 2014, the southeastern Asian countries were certified polio-free, which saw significant prevention of wild poliovirus to over 11 countries stretching from Indonesia to India (Mehndiratta, Mehndiratta, and Pande, 2014). This was a substantial step in eradicating global polio infections, with over 80% of the world population living in polio-free areas. The oral polio vaccine has managed to prevent over 1.5 million deaths in children’s credit to continue immunization programs worldwide.
5.0 The future of the polio vaccine
As of 2013, the polio vaccine and prevention efforts had prevented paralysis in more than 10 million people credited to measures to avoid the virus’s re-emergence. After intensive efforts spooning to some decades, back polio eradication plans are in the homestretch, and medical experts and stakeholders advise on how to fast-track the last mile. Since the adoption of the oral polio vaccine, the world has witnessed a significant reduction in polio cases (Famulare et al., 2018). The world health stakeholders continue to wipe out the remaining 1% of polio cases. The Global Health Assembly has taken appropriate strategies to eliminate polio around the world. This has been evident from the success achieved in India by stopping cases of polio in January 2011. Polio eradication efforts had managed to prevent over 10 million paralyzes by 2013. Besides the eradication of polio, humanitarian and economic benefits are immense. The world had greatly benefited from the polio eradication efforts. Developing countries have been greatly benefiting from polio eradication strategies, which have seen a significant reduction in polio cases. The World Health Assembly plans to eliminate the use of oral polio vaccine and adopt sue of stronger immunization programs to eradicate polio. Although some polio re-emergence cases in areas that had previously been declared polio-free, the World Health Organization is alert to prevent any possible surge (Famulare et al., 2018) as the world edges close to the world polio elimination and continuous strategic withdrawal of the Oral Polio Vaccine. Regular identification of and rapid response to the silent chains of transmission is of supreme importance.
6.0 Conclusion
Polio has remained a major public health concern over the 20 years, and stakeholders have been garnering world support financially to have enormous strides in the fight against the spread of polio. The world has managed to control and eradicate the spread of polio credit to increased global vaccination efforts. However, to declared the world polio-free and prevented any re-emergence, there is a need for ultimate knowledge to know how the virus persists. The oral polio vaccine has played a critical role in reducing polio infection cases across the world, thus preventing high rates of mortality in children. The world can now enjoy efforts made by the world health assembly in addressing the polio pandemic.
7.0 References
Martinez-Bakker, M., King, A. A., & Rohani, P. (2015). Unraveling the transmission ecology of polio. PLoS Biol, 13(6), e1002172.
World health organization (2019). Poliomyelitis. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/poliomyelitis
Chard, A. N., Datta, S. D., Tallis, G., Burns, C. C., Wassilak, S. G., Vertefeuille, J. F., & Zaffran, M. (2020). Progress toward polio eradication—worldwide, January 2018–March 2020. Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, 69(25), 784.
Famulare, M., Selinger, C., McCarthy, K. A., Eckhoff, P. A., & Chabot-Couture, G. (2018). Assessing the stability of polio eradication after the withdrawal of the oral polio vaccine. PLoS biology, 16(4), e2002468.
Baicus, A. (2012). History of polio vaccination. World journal of virology, 1(4), 108.
Zambon, M., & Martin, J. (2018). Polio eradication: next steps and future challenges. Euro surveillance, 23(47), 1800625.
Mehndiratta, M. M., Mehndiratta, P., & Pande, R. (2014). Poliomyelitis: historical facts, epidemiology, and current challenges in the eradication. The Neurohospitalist, 4(4), 223-229.