COVID VACCINATION WOULD ALSO WORK LIKE POLIO JABS
Yesterday, October 24, was World Polio Day, an opportunity to highlight global efforts toward a polio-free world – and also honour the contributions of those in the fight to eradicate polio from the world.
Poliomyelitis – commonly known as polio – is a disabling and life-threatening infectious disease caused by the poliovirus which can spread from person-to-person.
More often than not, the virus moves from the gut to affect the central nervous system/spinal cord, thus causing body paralysis mostly of one’s legs and – less commonly – also muscles of the head, neck and diaphragm.
The malady has existed for thousands of years, but with major outbreaks starting to occur in Europe and the United States only late in the late 19th century, where polio rapidly became one of the most worrying childhood diseases.
In due course of time and events, the virus that causes the pandemic was first identified in 1909 by the Austrian immunologist Karl Landsteiner – and efforts to surmount it culminated with the development of an effective vaccine by the American virologist-cum-researcher Jonas Salk in the 1950s.
The official launch of Jonas Salk’s injectable vaccine in 1955 was just as soon followed by an oral polio vaccine (OPV) by the Polish-American medical researcher Albert Sabin, whose large-scale clinical trials in the Cincinnati City of Iowa in the US in April 1960 led to effectively eradicating polio in the area.
If nothing else, this demonstrated that poliomyelitis, which has no known or specific treatment-cum-cure to-date, is nonetheless preventable with the polio vaccine – this notwithstanding that multiple doses of the vaccination are required for it to be effective.
Significant reduction
According to the US’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCs), polio cases across the US dropped on the back of vaccination measures from about 350,000 in 1988 to only 137 in 2018.
It, therefore, comes as no surprise that CDCs – in their message for World Polio Day 2021 titled “Global Immunisation”, and last reviewed on October 18 this year – “strongly recommends polio vaccination boosters for travellers and people who live in countries where the disease is endemic, such as Pakistan”.
We have purposely gone to relatively great lengths here in sincere efforts to emphasise the importance of vaccination to inoculate and otherwise immunise people against maladies as currently exemplified by the still-ravaging Covid-19 pandemic.
After first erupting in the Wuhan City of Hubei Province in China in December 2019, the mutating virus had by 08:13GMT yesterday (October 24, 2021) infected over 244.15 million people across the world, killing more than 4.95 million of them in the process.
This is to say nothing of the havoc it has been wreaking on economies at the national and global levels.
The foregoing alone is cause enough to stress the dire need for effective vaccination against the hydra-headed coronavirus monster. Hence this, our sincere call upon Tanzanians, to go for anti-Covid-19 vaccination soonest.
Not only would this save them from otherwise preventable disaster; it would also save the rest of the world at large. Let’s get it done.
