LOC16:45
13:45 GMT
GENEVA, Oct 24 (KUNA) -- The world marks Friday the polio day as fresh fears are on the rise with the ghost of the disease making a strong reappearance in regions where it is supposed to have been eliminated. This raises the question if utter eradication of the disease is possible by 2018.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Polio is setting off the alarm in 10 countries at least.
It fears wider spread of the virus in countries where it holds sway, Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan, with the emergence of cases in Iraq and Syria. Failure could lead to 200,000 children afflicted with polio worldwide.
WHO experts are seeking innovative ways to counter the disease in these states most of which are classified "countries of crisis" where the task is not at all an easy one, yet it has to be done.
Pakistan has recorded more than 85 percent of the global polio cases in 2014, and is being so regarded as the "greatest single risk" to eradicating the crippling disease. The 209 cases of paralysis caused by wild polio virus during the current year in 26 districts is the highest number on record during the last one and a half decade it has been reported.
World Polio Day is observed annually on 24 October, which marks the birth of United States virologist, Jonas Salk, who was the leader of the team that invented a polio vaccine in 1955.
Despite 99 percent reduction in the number of polio cases since the launch of polio eradication initiative in 1988, wiping off the virus still remains a global dream, the WHO says. It believes that the emergence of a new case means more children are threatened.
According to the WHO, Polio is a highly infectious disease caused by a virus and it invades the nervous system, and can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.
The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (e.g. contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine.
Initial symptoms are fever, fatigue, headache, vomiting, stiffness in the neck and pain in the limbs. One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis (usually in the legs). Among those paralyzed, 5 percent to 10 percent die when their breathing muscles become immobilized.
There is no cure for polio, it can only be prevented. Polio vaccine, given multiple times, can protect a child for life, it stresses.
In 1988, the forty-first WHA adopted a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio. It marked the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), spearheaded by national governments, WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, and supported by key partners including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
This followed the certification of the eradication of smallpox in 1980, progress during the 1980s towards elimination of the poliovirus in the Americas, and Rotary International's commitment to raise funds to protect all children from the disease.
The WHO said that economic modelling had found that the eradication of polio would save at least USD 40-50 billion over the next 20 years, mostly in low-income countries. Most importantly, success will mean that no child will ever again suffer the terrible effects of lifelong polio-paralysis. (end)
at.msa