Wild polio patients reflect as Africa has declared disease-free

Lagos (Reuters)-The right leg of Nigeria’s Gvemisoliziba migwe was substantially paralyzed after being infected with 11-month-old wild polio. At the age of 28, he currently has an active life as a wheelchair basketball player and enjoys swimming and kayaking.

“Polio is not a death sentence,” she told Reuters with a smile.

Thousands of people across Africa are still affected by the disease, but on Tuesday, an independent African Regional Certification Commission for the Eradication of Polio (ARCC) has since recorded the last case in Nigeria. Four years later, he declared that the area had no endemic wild polio.

Published during a World Health Organization (WHO) event, the certification was devastating to all 47 WHO African countries that could attack the nervous system and cause irreversible paralysis within hours. It has been confirmed to have eradicated various viral diseases.

Children under the age of 5 are the most vulnerable, but they can be fully protected with a prophylactic vaccine. In order to keep the virus away, the population vaccination coverage must be high and continuous surveillance is important.

The last case in Africa was recorded in 2016 in northeastern Borno, Nigeria, and has been devastated since 2009 by the Islamic extremist Boko Haram rebellion.

One way the disease has been eradicated in Borno is to use veterans in the dangerous areas using military and government-licensed militias, said Tunji Fanshaw, Rotary International’s Nigerian polio eradication coordinator. He said it was escort.

Worldwide, the number of cases of wild polio has been significantly reduced by national and regional vaccination of infants and children. However, the disease is still endemic in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“It’s everywhere dangerous until the wild poliovirus is eradicated everywhere,” said Michael Galway, a polio expert at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, telling Reuters to stay alert.

“Nothing prevents the virus from creating a route from Pakistan and Afghanistan to Africa,” he said.

“I cry”

Based in Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, Ijigba Migbe has hidden the difficulty of walking by looking back on his childhood when he suffered the emotional pain of wearing too big clothes.

“I was trying to cover up my feelings so that what you said didn’t reach me. But inside… I’m about to cry,” she recalls.

The WHO estimates that 1.8 million children have been saved from lifelong paralysis from wild polio.

However, despite Tuesday’s announcement, the vaccine-derived strain, which was only partially vaccinated, could infect people with the same symptoms as wild-type and continues to spread in Africa. I am.

“We need to be vigilant and maintain vaccination coverage to prevent the recurrence of wild polioviruses and address the ongoing threat of vaccine-derived polio,” said Dr. Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Africa Regional Director. Said.

Vaccine-derived cases of poliovirus may occur when the live, weakened virus of the oral polio vaccine transits between immunocompromised populations and eventually transforms into a form that can cause paralysis there is.

The 16 African countries affected by the vaccine-derived poliovirus epidemic include Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia.

Usman Yusuf, infected at age 3, a member of the National Polio Survivor Association of Nigeria, welcomed the eradication of wild polio from Africa.

Yusuf, who said he was looking forward to eradicating polio one day, said he after sitting on a wheelboard and referencing a soccer game of polio survivors propelled by arms.

“We are affected. We do not expect children and younger children to follow the same route.”