Africa now free of wild poliovirus, but threat remains

JOHANNESBURG — Health authorities on Tuesday declared the African continent free of the wild poliovirus after decades of effort, though cases of vaccine-derived polio are still sparking outbreaks of the paralyzing disease in more than a dozen countries.

The declaration leaves Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan as the only countries thought to still have the wild poliovirus, with vaccination efforts against the highly infectious, water-borne disease complicated by insecurity and attacks on health workers.

The announcement by the African Regional Certification Commission for Polio Eradication comes after no cases were reported for four years. Polio once paralyzed some 75,000 children a year across Africa.

Health authorities see the declaration as a rare glint of good news in Africa amid the coronavirus pandemic, an Ebola outbreak in western Congo and the persistent deadly challenges of malaria, HIV and tuberculosis.

“This is an incredible and emotional day,” WHO Africa director Matshidiso Moeti said, but she urged vigilance as the coronavirus threatens vaccination and surveillance efforts.

The World Health Organization says this is just the second time a virus has been eradicated in Africa, after the elimination of smallpox four decades ago.

But sometimes patchy surveillance across the vast continent of 1.3 billion people raises the possibility that scattered cases of the wild poliovirus still remain, undetected.