How Africa is conquering polio

Africa has achieved a year without any new cases of wild polio for the first time, but experts warn that violent insurgencies could yet prove their Achilles heel in finally eradicating the disease.

The poliomyelitis virus attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis within hours of infection. No cases have been identified in Africa since August 11 last year in the Hobyo district of Mudug province in Somalia, meaning that the continent is two years away from being certified polio-free.

But both Somalia and Nigeria, which also saw its last polio case in 2014, are battling Islamist militant groups – al-Shabab and Boko Haram respectively – raising fears that vaccines will not reach children displaced by conflict.

“I just hope Boko Haram will not be the Achilles heel of our work,” said Oyewale Tomori, the professor of virology at the Nigerian Academy of Science, who has dedicated four decades of his life to polio research. “Unless we get rid of the insurgency, we cannot be sure we will eradicate polio.”

In Nigeria, there was a target cohort of five million to six million children each year, he added, and vaccines must reach 90% to 95% of them to prevent polio recurring. “Getting vaccines to displaced people will be crucial,” said Tomori.

Boko Haram’s bid to carve out an Islamic caliphate in northern Nigeria has cost tens of thousands of lives. The group lost territory this year but showed its sustained ability to carry out bombings and targeted killings. Similarly, al-Shabab, while suffering military setbacks, continues to strike in Somalia.

Despite the turmoil, Nigeria could soon be removed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) from the list of countries where polio is endemic. As recently as 2012 the country had more than half of all the world’s cases, but numbers fell by 92% between 2013 and 2014.

Somalia suffered 194 cases of polio in 2013, most of them children, but this was cut to just five in 2014, all in the northeast region of Puntland.

Africa’s progress intensifies pressure for action in the only two other polio-endemic countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where there have been 28 and six cases respectively so far this year. Global health experts hope that by 2018 polio will become the second human infectious disease, after smallpox, to be wiped out.

The Gates Foundation and Rotary International are among the biggest donors to polio eradication.

Carol Pandak, the director of Rotary’s PolioPlus programme, said: “Africa’s milestone of one year without a case of paralysis caused by wild poliovirus is an unprecedented and important advancement in the 30-year, worldwide effort to end polio.

“However, it is too soon to celebrate. We need to keep polio eradication a high priority – immunisation campaigns and high quality surveillance activities must continue throughout Africa, as does improvement in routine immunisation, to ensure that the virus does not return.”

Nigeria had struggled to contain polio since some northern states imposed a year-long boycott of the vaccine in 2003. Some state governors and religious leaders in the predominantly Islamic north alleged that the vaccines were contaminated by Western powers to spread sterility and HIV among Muslims.

But, in 2009, traditional leaders around the country agreed to back immunisation campaigns and encourage parents to have their children vaccinated. The government also set up emergency operations centres to co-ordinate vaccination campaigns and reach children in previously inaccessible areas.

Tomori said: “We finally got our act together after so many years. We had many obstacles at leadership level and at community level. We realised we couldn’t reach the community with vaccines without the traditional leaders. Nigeria used to be the main problem. Now there is hope for Africa. We have to make sure polio does not come back.”

This article is published in collaboration with Mail & Guardian. Publication does not imply endorsement of views by the World Economic Forum.

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Author: David Smith writes for Mail & Guardian.

Image: A team from UNICEF (Ivory Coast) vaccinates children against polio at St. Ambrose church in Angree, Abidjan. REUTERS/Thierry Gouegnon