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| Image: Shot@Life volunteers in Uganda pose with fingers held close together indicating how close we are to ending polio |
“We are THIS CLOSE to ending polio!”
That was the tagline for polio eradication campaigns back in 2012. Celebrities like Bill Gates smiled from airport advertisements holding fingers close together, showing a little tiny gap representing how close the world was to eradicating this terrible childhood disease from the face of the Earth. When I travelled to Uganda with the UN Foundation for the Shot@Life campaign, I got to be in a “this close” picture, too! I wondered if we would be done with polio in 10 years’ time?
Here we are in 2022, and the answer is…not quite.
Back then, polio was still endemic in three countries. Now it’s only wild in two countries: Afghanistan and Pakistan. To show you the progress in even just the last few years, look at this graphic about Afghanistan. It shows a drop from 56 cases of polio in 2020 to only 1 case in 2022!
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| Image: Graphic showing a reduction of polio cases in Afghanistan since 2020 |
But the troubling news is that the pandemic caused us to lose some of our vaccine coverage gains. Polio popped up in places previously considered free from it. A case in Malawi was detected this year...more than five years after all of Africa was declared free of indigenous wild polio in August 2020.
Analysis showed the strain in Malawi was linked to a Pakistani strain. That was a wake up call for us to stay vigiliant in countries with no polio, so that an outbreak cannot take hold if the virus is imported via travel.
Similarly, a polio outbreak in New York City this year likely came in through international travel. We need to keep up vaccination rates to avoid pockets of unvaccinated individuals where an outbreak can take hold. As long as there are new babies born, our job of vaccinating is never done!
What can we do today?
Call Congress
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| Image: Graphic with the phone number to call Congress on World Polio Day, October 24th. The phone number is 202-902-6614. |
Join Shot@Life volunteers like me across the country who are calling our senators and representatives to encourage their support of global vaccine programs! Call 202-902-6614 and ask to be connected to one of your U.S. senators or your U.S. representative to leave a message for them about global immunizations. You can use this sample script below. You can call three times, once for each senator and once for your representative!
“Hi my name is __ and I’m a constituent of Sen/Rep __. I’m calling today to talk about global childhood immunization programs and why Sen/Rep __ should support fully funding U.S. government global vaccine activities in FY23. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the suspension of vaccinations, jeopardizing decades of childhood immunization progress. This means supporting global health systems like USAID, UNICEF, Gavi, and the CDC is more important now than ever. Thank you!”
Here's a pic of my and my friends getting together to call on Zoom!
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| Image: Eight smiling people holding phones on zoom screens |
Post on Social Media
Please spread the word on social media by retweeting Shot@Life or using these sample posts. You can use the hashtags, #VaccinesWork, #WorldPolioDay, or #EndPolio.
Thanks to U.S. leadership & because #VaccinesWork, polio cases have gone down 99.9% worldwide since 1988. However, recent detection of the virus in the U.S. and U.K. remind us that polio anywhere in the world is a threat everywhere. #EndPolio
Thirty years ago, polio was paralyzing 1,000 children in 125 countries every single day. Today, that number has fallen 99.9% thanks to U.S. support and the tireless efforts of frontline health workers, communities, and global partners. #WorldPolioDay
The cost of complacency is high: if we fail to eradicate polio, we could see thousands of new cases every year within a decade, costing $33 billion by the end of this century. Now is the time to #endpolio for good.
Image: Book cover
