WHO: 80% of world population now polio-free

AFP FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Eighty percent of the world’s population is now polio-free, the World Health Organization said.

This after 11 countries in Asia were certified by experts as polio free, joining six other WHO regions that have successfully eradicated the infectious disease.

“This is a momentous victory for the millions of health workers who have worked with governments, non-governmental organizations, civil society and international partners to eradicate polio from the region,” Dr. Poonam Khetrapal Singh, Regional Director for the WHO Southeast Asia Region, said in a statement.

Singh and his experts, who constitute the Southeast Asia Regional Certification Commission for Polio Eradication (SEA-RCCPE), reached a decision that all 11 countries in the region— Bangladesh, Bhutan, North Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Timor Leste, are now polio-free after evidence met the requirements for certification.

The following conditions must be met for a WHO region to be declared as polio free:

• At least three years of zero confirmed cases due to indigenous wild poliovirus
• Excellent laboratory-based surveillance for poliovirus
• Demonstrated capacity to detect, report and respond to imported cases of poliomyelitis, and
• Assurance of safe containment of polioviruses.