This Is How Nigeria Beat Polio | TIME

A quarter-century campaign brings the world tantalizingly close to eradicating a disease It’s easy not to notice a negative. A house burns down on your block and it’s all you can talk about. But a house doesn’t burn down? Where’s the news? Still, absence can be the stuff of headlines, and that fact has rarely […]

Nigeria to eradicate polio totally in 2017 – FGPress Examiner

Though hitting the milestone on Friday, it will take two years of monitoring before Nigeria, the last African polio-endemic country, can be certified as free of the virus, Melissa Corkum, chief Nigeria polio spokeswoman at the United Nations Children’s Fund, said in an interview from the nation’s capital, Abuja. The Executive Director of the National […]

Nigeria celebrates one year with no reported cases of polio – The Globe and Mail

Once stigmatized as the world’s polio epicentre, Nigeria on Friday celebrates its first year with no reported case of the crippling disease, having overcome obstacles ranging from Islamic extremists who assassinated vaccinators to rumours the vaccine was a plot to sterilize Muslims. Just 20 years ago, this West African nation was recording 1,000 polio cases […]

How South-East Asia became polio-free

This has been a great month: South-East Asia has become Polio Free. This article appeared in the Rotary Blog and we wanted to share it with the PSA members. SOUTHEAST ASIA DECLARED POLIO FREE Schoolchildren participate in a rally organized by Rotary members in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India, celebrating the country’s achievement of polio eradication. […]

Anticipating Outbreaks on the Path to Eradication

posted from Impatient Optimists, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation HAMID JAFARI July 30, 2013 The final push to end polio is the largest and most complex disease eradication effort in history. As the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) carries out the Polio Endgame and Eradication Strategic Plan, a six-year program to achieve a polio-free world by […]

Polio Eradication Suffers A Setback As Somali Outbreak Worsens

(reprinted from NPR.org) Somalia hadn’t had a case of polio for nearly six years. But in the past few months, the virus has come back. Now the East African country has the worst polio outbreak anywhere in the world. Twenty new cases of polio were reported this week in Somalia by the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. That […]

A Conversation With: Polio Expert Naveen Thacker

From New York Times/ International Herald Tribune, India Edition October 24, 2012 A Conversation With: Polio Expert Naveen Thacker By PAMPOSH RAINA Courtesy of Dr. Naveen ThackerDr. Naveen Thacker, Standing Committee Member of International Pediatric Association. India appears to have succeeded in the fight against polio, with no new cases reported in the country since […]

What makes polio an emergency?

On the 25th of May, the World Health Assembly declared polio a programmatic emergency for global public health. The Global Poverty Project interviewed Bruce Aylward, assistant director-general at the World Health Organization (WHO)Why now?Three things were driving the ministers of health of the world in declaring polio an emergency: first – on a positive note […]

Keeping current on Polio

For the latest information on polio eradication efforts around the world, we recommend the website Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI): http://www.polioeradication.org/ The website sponsors are the  WHO, CDC, Unicef, and Rotary International