Africa declared free of wild polio
- Posted By
10Pointer
- Categories
Science & Technology
- Published
1st Sep, 2020
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- Africa has been declared free from wild polio by the independent body, the Africa Regional Certification Commission.
- A region is certified as free of wild polio after three years have passed without the virus being detected in any of its countries.
- Nigeria is the last African country to be declared free from wild polio.
- Wild polio is still present in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
- It is a strain of the weakened poliovirus that was initially included in oral polio vaccine (OPV) and that has changed over time and behaves more like the wild or naturally occurring virus.
- Oral polio vaccine (OPV) contains an attenuated (weakened) vaccine-virus, activating an immune response in the body. When a child is immunized with OPV, the weakened vaccine-virus replicates in the intestine for a limited period, thereby developing immunity by building up antibodies.
