Polio is a disease that has been eradicated in India and some other countries by vaccination. How do you think this happened?
Answers
Explanation:
When a disease stops circulating in a region, it’s considered eliminated in that region. Polio, for example, was eliminated in the United States by 1979 after widespread vaccination efforts.
If a particular disease is eliminated worldwide, it’s considered eradicated. To date, only one infectious disease that affects humans has been eradicated.* In 1980, after decades of efforts by the World Health Organization, the World Health Assembly endorsed a statement declaring smallpox eradicated. Coordinated efforts rid the world of a disease that had once killed up to 35% of its victims and left others scarred or blind.
Smallpox eradication was accomplished with a combination of focused surveillance—quickly identifying new smallpox cases—and ring vaccination. “Ring vaccination” meant that anyone who could have been exposed to a smallpox patient was tracked down and vaccinated as quickly as possible, effectively corralling the disease and preventing its further spread. The last case of wild smallpox occurred in Somalia in 1977.
Smallpox was a good candidate for eradication for several reasons. First, the disease is highly visible: smallpox patients develop a rash that is easily recognized. In addition, the time from exposure to the initial appearance of symptoms is fairly short, so that the disease usually can’t spread very far before it’s noticed. Workers from the World Health Organization found smallpox patients in outlying areas by displaying pictures of people with the smallpox rash and asking if anyone nearby had a similar rash.
Answer:
In 1988, the World Health Organization (WHO), together with Rotary International, UNICEF, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) passed the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), with the goal of eradicating polio by the year 2000.