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Every year, 24th October is celebrated as a World Polio Day to spread awareness towards the eradication of polio. It was initiated by Rotary International to remember the birth of Jonas Salk, who directed the first team to create a vaccine against poliomyelitis.
Polio is caused by a virus, which affect the nervous system. This virus is mainly grown by person-to-person contact, fecal-oral route drinking water or other drinks or eating raw or undercooked food that is infected with the feces of an infected person.
The use of the inactivated poliovirus vaccine and subsequent widespread use of the oral poliovirus vaccine, made by Albert Sabin, led to the establishment of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. The day also commemorates the efforts of thousands of employees and other volunteers, who are working for the eradication of Polio.
HISTORY OF WORLD POLIO DAY
As mentioned earlier, the Rotary Foundation started World Polio Day nearly a decade ago to eradicate the Poliovirus from all parts of the world. Rotary club is a partner in the Global Polio eradication Program with different organizations such as WHO, Bill and Malinda Gates Foundation and U.S. Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.
The Global Polio Eradication Initiative was launched by the World Health Organization and Rotary International in 1988; that time there were nearly 350000 cases of polio in 125 countries. This Initiative is the largest private-public partnership for health, has reduced polio by 99%.
Present-day, WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation five core partners are jointly leading it. In 2013 a lot of countries were declared polio-free that show the success of the GPEP Program. Present-day, Polio survives only among the world's poorest and most marginalized communities, where it stalks the most vulnerable children.
POLIOVIRUS POLIOMYELITIS (POLIO)
The highly infectious viral disease, Poliovirus Poliomyelitis (polio) mostly affects young children below the age of 5. This Poliovirus is transmitted easily and once it enters the body, it multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and can cause paralysis.
The starting symptoms of Poliovirus Poliomyelitis are fever, fatigue, stiffness in the neck, pain in the limbs, headache, and vomiting. In some cases, polio can cause permanent paralysis. There is no cure for polio except immunization. The polio vaccine is given numerous times and it protects a child for life-time.
WORLD POLIO DAY CELEBRATION
Every year, World Polio Day is celebrated with a unique theme. Every theme of the occasion may serve different purposes and provide an objective to be achieved or mark the beginning of a new step towards the goal.
The World Polio Day 2018 theme was 'End Polio Now'. Polio was defined as a highly infectious viral disease that mostly affects young children. It has no cure, but can be prevented through immunization only. Now we are in 2019, and this is 31st World Polio Day.
We are near to end the second human disease in history. "So Get A Drop, Stop The Strop."
Happy World Polio Day
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