Sir, – The killing of nine health workers who were administering polio vaccination in Nigeria last week (World News, February 9th) and at least 16 others in Pakistan last month is very worrying.
Polio is a devastating disease, which can cause irreversible paralysis (poliomyelitis) in children. Poliomyelitis was endemic worldwide until the 1950s when two vaccines halted the spread of the virus in rich nations. This success led in 1988 to the largest-ever public health effort in history, during which more than 20 million volunteers vaccinated over 2.5 billion children against polio. As a result, new cases of poliomyelitis decreased from 350,000 in 1988 to less than 500 in 2012.
Today, only three countries remain polio endemic – Nigeria, Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, the polio eradication drive must not stop now. According to the World Health Organisation, failure to eradicate polio from the last remaining strongholds could result in as many as 200,000 new cases every year, within 10 years, all over the world.
Just as poliovirus does not observe borders, vaccination programmes must be allowed to proceed in every country without being used as weapons or targets of political rivalry, as has been perpetrated in recent months. The victims of such warfare will be children on all sides of the political divisions. – Yours, etc,