With just a little more cash and a lot more political clout, polio could become the second dread disease to be wiped off the Earth, experts said on Tuesday (12 April). The world effort to eradicate polio is short only $75 million. And leaders of the few countries where the virus is still endemic - Nigeria, Niger, Egypt, Afghanistan, India and Pakistan - need to get on board, they told a conference.
Tuesday was the 50th anniversary of the approval of the first vaccine against poliomyelitis, which once killed or paralysed hundreds of thousands of children each year.
Caused by a highly infectious virus, polio usually causes common cold symptoms, but in a small percentage of people spreads to the digestive and nervous systems and can cause severe damage. Children under 5 are the most vulnerable.
Like smallpox, which was eradicated in 1979, polio infects only human beings. The vaccine works well and the World Health Organisation believes polio could also be eradicated by the end of this year.
"We think that it is realistic to eradicate polio. The question is how fast we can eradicate polio," said Dr Robert Keegan of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
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