WHO Reports Polio is Eradicated From Southeast Asia

After reporting bad news about air pollution deaths yesterday, the World Health Organization followed up the bad news with some good. The organization reported polio is eradicated from Southeast Asia on Thursday.

Polio is an infectious disease that spreads virally from person to person and infects the brain and spinal cord, resulting in paralysis. There is no cure, but vaccinations can protect patients from infection and promote its eradication. Perhaps the United States is the best example of that. In the 40s and early 50s, polio crippled 35,000 people per year--even President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But vaccinations wiped out the disease by 1979.

The WHO report is a milestone for India, which just five years ago accounted for almost half of polio cases worldwide. There hasn't been a confirmed case of the disease in three years in India. But this is also an achievement for the other underdeveloped nations in the region and the volunteers that participated to help better the health situation.

India's government-funded, billion-dollar campaign immunized 170 million children, which greatly contributed to this achievement. Southeast Asia accounts for a quarter of the world's population so the "polio-free" status was likely to take longer than the other world regions that did. The U.S. (1979), the Americas (1995), Western Pacific region (2000), and Europe (2002) are the other four to eliminate polio.

The next countries/regions of concern include the Middle East (Afghanistan and Pakistan) and Nigeria. Polio remains prevalent in these areas, which is especially dangerous in the case of Nigeria because diseases spread mightily fast in Africa (see haemorrhagic fever outbreak from last week). So although 80% of the world is polio free, work still needs to be done here.

But there is hope. Previously, health experts did not think it would be likely that India would be able to wipe out the disease because of the poor sanitation and living situations that overrun large sections of the country. With the help of 2.4 million volunteers and a government-funded program they were able to beat polio. Maybe worldwide organizations can step in and help the remaining affected regions.

To read more about the WHO report, visit this Los Angeles Times article.