Polio Eradication : Understanding Why Vaccination Must Continue

The good news of Cameroon’s recent certification by the World Health Organisation, WHO as a poliomyelitis-free nation risks being drowned by the need to continue vaccinating children aged below five years. This is more so because only the wild polio virus type has been eradicated. With two other types still lurking in dirty water. And from time to time succeed in finding host in bodies of vulnerable children, explains Zenabou Simpore, Polio Coordinator, United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF Cameroon.       
“We have so far had 10 cases of polio since the beginning of 2020, but they were not the wild type,” Zenabou points out. “Volunteers carry out epidemiological surveillance by collecting samples that are regularly tested in our laboratory,” she continues. “They are two types of surveillance – on humans by collecting samples of children’s faeces, and on the environment by collecting biological samples of water from streams where runoff household waste is emptied and people have a tendency to excrete,” she explains. 
"If the water contains the environmental polio type and an unvaccinated child’s mouth comes in contact with it, then the virus will be transmitted to the child. The most protected child is one who has received the most vaccines against polio. A child who is vaccinated today can still be vaccinated the following day agai...