WHO officially declares Africa polio-free

The World Health Organisation ( WHO) has declared the African continent free of polio virus.

Africa had successfully wiped out the wild poliovirus on Tuesday with no new cases reported in the last four years, the Africa Regional Certification Commission for Polio Eradication said in a statement.

Polio, a disease that affects children from five years and below, causes paralysis or death.

“This is a momentous milestone for Africa, now future generations of African children can live free of wild polio, ” Matshidiso Moeti, the World Health Organization’s regional director for Africa, was quoted as saying.

The declaration comes after a long process of surveillance, immunization and field verification visits to all 47 member-states in the region.

Moeti, however, cautioned that, “We must stay vigilant and keep up vaccination rates to avert a resurgence”.

He added that, “The expertise gained from polio eradication will continue to assist the African region in tackling Covid-19 and other health problems that have plagued the continent for so many years and ultimately move the continent toward universal health coverage.”

READ ALSO: WHO certifies Nigeria Polio free

Commenting on the development, the Director-General of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said Nigeria was the last African country to be rid of the wild poliovirus.

Ghebreyesus, who disclosed this in an article he co-authored with the Rotary International President, Holger Knaack, said having no single case of wild polio in Africa since 2016 “was one of the greatest achievements in public health history.”

He said: “As recently as 2012 half of all globally recorded cases of wild poliovirus were in Nigeria – the final country in the region to rid the virus from its borders. However, as with the COVID-19 pandemic, the lesson is that it’s never too late to turn a disease outbreak around. Through hard work, new innovations, and ensuring that no child was missed, Nigeria and the entire African region have now defeated polio.

“Across the region, health workers go village-to-village and door-to-door vaccinating children multiple times and offering health advice and support to the community.

“It’s a remarkable effort started by Rotary International, which in the 1980s – when there were hundreds of thousands of cases every year – made a global call for eradication.”

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