<CARE


  • If polio isn't eradicated, it could spread again and paralyze up to a thousand children a day.
  • Polio is currently affecting children in over a dozen countries, including Tajikistan, Pakistan, Afghanistan, DRC, Nigeria, Angola, India, Nepal, Chad, Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Niger, Liberia, and Sierra Leone.
  • There is no cure for polio; it can only be prevented through immunization.
  • Some 2 billion children around the world have been prevented from contracting polio since the global eradication effort began in 1988.
  • The global polio eradication effort is the largest public health initiative in history. Millions of volunteers, dozens of organizations and scores of governments are involved.
  • Many health workers and volunteers risk their lives to immunize children.
  • There are 20 million polio survivors worldwide, including 1 million in the United States.
  • The world has reduced polio by a staggering 99 percent.
  • In 1988, there were 350,000 new cases of polio. Last year, there were 1604.
  • The cost of the oral polio vaccine (OPV) is $0.11 per dose.
  • Poliovirus is spread through person-to-person, fecal-oral contact.
  • Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious disease, caused by a virus that invades the nervous system. It can cause total paralysis in a matter of hours.
  • If successful, polio will be only the second disease ever to be eradicated by humankind. Smallpox was the first to be eradicated.
  • Only one in 200 polio infections leads to irreversible paralysis. Among those paralyzed, five to 10 percent die when their breathing muscles become immobilized. Most people infected with poliovirus have no signs of illness and are never aware that they have been infected. Therefore, people often spread polio unknowingly
  • The World Health Organization considers a single confirmed case of polio paralysis to be evidence of an epidemic. Polio may infect thousands of people before the first case of polio paralysis emerges.
  • The oral polio vaccine (OPV) is a weakened live virus. The inactivated polio vaccine (IPV), which is injected, is not a "live" virus. OPV is the vaccine of choice when trying to contain a polio outbreak.
  • In developing countries, polio affects more than a person's physical mobility. Lacking funds or access to wheelchairs and crutches, polio victims face a future of poverty and isolation, unable to attend school, support themselves, marry or have a family.