Sunday, January 23, 2011

UNICEF and Gates Foundation support Angola's efforts to eradicate polio

Anthony Lake of UNICEF and Tachi Yamada of the Gates Foundation will have arrived in Angola by this weekend and support the Angolan government in its efforts to eradicate polio. Angola has been certified polio-free for its third year in 2004, but faced an outbreak of 32 cases of poliomyelitis in Luanda in 2010. This is a major setback in trying to interrupt the transmission of polio around the world, especially because 1 case of poliomyelitis indicates that there are at least 200 others who are infected with no symptoms. UNICEF and the Gates Foundation hope to interrupt transmission of polio by vast immunization coverage throughout the country and also aim to restructure the public health system of Angola.

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/214480.php

The last case of poliomyelitis reported was on December 23rd, 2010. So it has been an entire month that the world has not seen a polio case.... Although it is depressing to say this, polio is probably still around.

http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek.aspx

Yu-Jin

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