Polio
Sudan to launch mass polio vaccination after outbreak
The 13 cases in Sudan are derived from a vaccine, which can take place in rare cases when the weakened virus in the vaccine mutates, a problem in countries with...
Poliovirus now joins smallpox in the list of viruses that have been wiped out in Africa, the World Health Organization said.
Polio was endemic around the world until a vaccine was found in the 1950s, though this remained out of reach for many poorer countries in Asia and Africa.
WHO Africa regional director Matshediso Moeti on Wednesday responded to President Donald Trump’s announcement to withdraw funding.
Polio is a highly infectious viral disease that has no cure and can only be prevented with several doses of oral and injectable vaccines.
Global polio cases have been cut by more than 99% since 1988, but type 1 polio virus is still endemic in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
There is no cure for polio, which attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection.
The mass vaccination comes 12 years after the World Health Organization took Niger off the list of countries where polio is endemic.
The CDC is investigating 127 reported cases, including the ones that have been confirmed. More than 90% of the cases reported so far are people under 18 years of age.
A rare, but very scary, illness is being reported in dozens of states and kids are most often the victims. CNN reports.
The thing we take for granted is that the protection of vaccines allows that kind of freedom of interacting with people.
Manufacturing one of the world's most important vaccines will have several benefits for South Africa.
The virus was confirmed in stools of two people who had started to become paralysed and those of a healthy child.
There are hopes that similar declarations will be made about a number of other killer diseases, such as measles and rubella, in the coming years.
Nigerian cases of polio are widely seen as a serious setback to efforts to eradicate the virus.
Polio, which spreads rapidly among children, remains endemic only in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The disease is expected to spread fast in Syria given the current political instability and civil war.