PESHAWAR, Pakistan – After decades of work, polio has been eradicated almost everywhere in the world. All that was left were bags in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Medical experts had hoped that 2020 would be the last year that the major form of the virus, which could permanently paralyze or cause death, poses a threat.
The coronavirus pandemic halted progress.
In March, house-to-house vaccination teams working in Pakistan had to be forced to stop their work due to Covid-19. As a result, polio has recovered, including a mutated form of the virus. It has now been detected in samples taken from sewage in 74% of Pakistan in late 2020, compared to just 13% in early 2018.
“The virus is not just in certain pockets now. The risk is everywhere in the country, said Rana Safdar, the doctor in charge of Pakistan’s polio campaign.
The decades-long battle to eradicate polio around the world is one of the most ambitious and costly public health campaigns. The mass vaccination and its progress in arresting a disease that has wiped out or killed millions of people points to the potential success in efforts to vaccinate people around the world against Covid-19.