A Campaign Shows Signs of Progress Against Polio
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JOHANNESBURG -- A decade after the world's original deadline for eradicating polio, the most tenacious bastions of the crippling virus -- Nigeria and India -- have recently shown remarkable progress in halting its spread, giving even some of the antipolio campaign's severest doubters hope that it may yet largely achieve its goal.
In Nigeria, Muslim leaders in the north -- who had allowed the disease to spread by halting polio vaccinations in 2003-4, based on rumors that the drops were part of a Western plot to sterilize Muslim girls or spread the AIDS virus -- now embrace the cause as their own. So far this year, only two children have been paralyzed by wild polio virus in Nigeria, compared with 123 during the same period last year, according to Nigerian and international health officials.
And in India, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar -- states that seemed unable to vanquish polio no matter how many times they vaccinated children -- for the first time have not had a single case caused by the most virulent polio viral type for four months straight, World Health Organization officials said.
Globally, the number of new polio cases registered so far this year is down to 56 -- a 75 percent drop from the same period last year, the W.H.O. said.
"We've never had so many things looking so positive across so many areas," said Dr. Bruce Aylward, director of the polio eradication drive for the World Health Organization.
Stephen L. Cochi, of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said, "A 75 percent decline in a year is pretty remarkable and suggests we may be turning the corner."
Both men were quick to caution that the hopeful developments could come undone, as they have before, and neither thinks polio can be wiped out before 2012.
But even some who had previously said that eradication of the wild polio virus could not be done are now saying it just may be possible. "A lot of progress has been made," said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, who helped conquer smallpox. "There is a chance they might be able to interrupt transmission." But he cautioned that vaccine-derived polio virus might still be a problem.
First Published April 13, 2010 2:00 am
