Africa is responding aggressively to close down a polio epidemic that has spread the virus as far as Indonesia in recent weeks. Countries across the west and central belt and the Horn of Africa are participating in the third in a series of pan-continental immunization drives this year to immunize all children against the virus.
The campaigns hope to reach over 77 million children, in one of the largest public health exercises ever undertaken on the continent.
The stakes are very high. The ongoing polio epidemic that emerged in West Africa last year has so far spread the virus to 16 polio-free countries and re-established transmission in six. Polio has crossed the Red Sea into Saudi Arabia and Yemen and hopped across continents to Indonesia, which had been polio free for a decade. Stopping the virus in Africa, particularly in Nigeria and Niger, is critical...
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