World Polio Day is celebrated every year on 24th of October. The World Polio Day was initiated by Rotary International years ago to celebrate the birth of American medical researcher and virologist Jonas Salk for his work on developing a vaccine against poliomyelitis.

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The use of inactivated poliovirus vaccine as well as the live oral poliovirus vaccine directed toward the establishment of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in the year 1988. This is a public-private partnership between several organizations including Rotary, the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the World Health Organisation (WHO), UNICEF, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

What are the Thoughts of Indian Government Regarding World Polio Day?

India is now a polio-free country. India marks six years since its last polio case. Our county received its polio-free certification along from WHO on 27th March 2014. January 2017 records six years since the last case of polio reported in India. This milestone is considered the most difficult to stop polio, illustrates the importance of intensive vaccination drive, strong surveillance systems, and targeted social mobilization efforts.

What is the World Polio Status Today?

Today, there are only three countries including Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan where transmission of wild poliovirus is occurring. Whereas, the polio cases have decreased by above 99% since 1988 worldwide.

What is the Theme of World Polio Day 2018?

The World Polio Day Theme 2018 – “End Polio Now.”

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What is Polio?

Poliomyelitis (polio) is an extremely infectious viral disease, which mainly affects young children under the age of 5 years. The poliovirus is transmitted through person-to-person spread mainly by the fecal-oral route or by contaminated water or food. After the transmission, the virus starts multiplying in the intestine, from where the virus can enter the nervous system and can cause paralysis.

What are the Symptoms of Polio?

Initial symptoms of polio include;

• Fever

• Fatigue

• A headache

• Vomiting

• The stiffness of the neck and pain in the limbs

What are the Preventions for Polio?

Well, there is no cure for this disease, but effective and safe vaccines are there for the preventions of polio. The disease can be prevented by immunization.

Polio vaccine protects a child for life. The strategy to destroy polio is therefore based on preventing infection through immunizing every child until transmission stops and the world become polio-free.

There are two types of vaccine that helps in preventing the infection:

• OPV (Oral Polio Vaccine)

• Injectable Polio Vaccine (IPV)

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