PESHAWAR, Pakistan – After decades of work, polio had been eradicated from almost all over the world. All that remained were pockets in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Medical experts hoped that 2020 would be the last year that the major form of the virus, which can permanently paralyze or cause death, poses a threat.
The coronavirus pandemic has halted that progress.
In March, door-to-door vaccination teams working across Pakistan were forced to stop working because of Covid-19. As a result, polio recovered, including a mutated form of the virus. It has now been found in sewer samples taken in 74% of Pakistan at the end of 2020, against just 13% in early 2018.
‘Now the virus is not only in select pockets. The risk is all over the country, ”said Rana Safdar, the doctor responsible for Pakistan’s polio campaign.
The decades-long battle to eradicate polio around the world is one of the most ambitious and costly public health campaigns in history. The massive vaccination drive and progress in arresting a disease that has incapacitated or killed millions of people point to the success that is possible in attempts to vaccinate people around the world against Covid-19.