Executive Summary: Project Polio
Mission
Our mission is to educate the people of Pakistan and the world on the nature and eradication process of Polio. We provide information on the overview of the disease, the aspects of the disease in Pakistan, and interventions that can be used to complete the eradication process of Polio worldwide. We will also touch base on the organization's, grants, and efforts being put forth to complete said process.
Vision
The vision of Project Polio is to eradicate polio worldwide by 2030. This will be accomplished through vaccinating every child in developing countries against polio causing the cases to decrease until the last endemic countries are cleared of the disease.
Background
For a multitude of years, epidemics of polio have been reported in developing countries. However, with new vaccinations available and a global effort to eradicate the disease, the number of polio cases has majorly declined. In 1988, 350,000 cases were reported in 125 countries. Fast forward to today, 2015, only 44 cases in two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, are facing the disease of polio (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014).
Polio is a crippling disease spread by a fecal-oral route that mainly affects children under the age of five. There are three different subtypes of polio and two types of vaccinations available including the oral polio vaccine (OPV) and the inactivated polio vaccine. The OPV, because it is an oral vaccine, can be administered by anyone, usually volunteers, and costs around an average of $0.14 (World Health Organization (WHO), 2015).
Pakistan, of the two countries, has the highest number of polio cases around the world. With a population of over 199 million people and only 2.8% of their $250 billion GDP being spent on health expenditures, they are faced with a range of challenges including insecurity, poverty, weak health systems, and poor sanitation (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015). Due to the lack of trust in the vaccination as well as the volunteers, many parents are not seeking the vaccine for their children. Add that to the poor sanitation helping spread the disease, polio in Pakistan still remains a big road block in the fight to eradicate polio.
Impact
The fight against polio greatly affects the people of Pakistan as it holds around 80% of the cases of polio globally. This has a drastic effect on the health of the population, the healthcare infrastructure, and economy. Those infected with the disease are often drastically impacted by it, with 200 infections leading to irreversible paralysis (WHO, 2015). Young children are the most common victims of polio, and this paralysis often leaves them with crutches and painful braces on their legs. The consequences of polio’s presence in Pakistan are too great to ignore. This year alone, the Pakistan government has spent over 40 million dollars on the oral vaccine of polio in an effort to eradicate the disease from the country of Pakistan (Polio Global Eradication Initiative, n.d.).
Interventions
There are several aid-based interventions currently in progress that are working both independently and as a united effort towards the eradication of polio worldwide. Some of the key health organizations at the forefront of these interventions are WHO, CDC, Rotary, USAID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and UNICEF (Polio Global Eradication Initiative, n.d.).
The largest health intervention currently active in Pakistan is the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, also known as the GPEI (Polio Global Eradication Initiative, n.d.). Through the use of widespread vaccination campaigns, national immunization days, and educating the Pakistani people about the disease, WHO and its partners have decreased the number of polio cases by 99%, leaving only the poor and rural people of Pakistan still vulnerable to the disease (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). We must find and vaccinate this last 1% in order to eradicate the disease because as long as there are enough vulnerable hosts for the polio virus, there is a potential for the disease to spread to other nearby countries.
Our group believes that mass vaccinations are the key to eradicating this disease from the remaining two endemic countries. In order to reach that last 1%, volunteers in Pakistan will have to develop ways to reach the most rural people of Pakistan and build trust between the volunteers and Pakistanis that has been lost by the current war and the Taliban’s presence in the country.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2014). CDC's Work to Eradicate Polio.
Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/polio/pdf/cdcs-work-to-eradicate-polio_508.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2014). Poliomyelitis. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/polio.pdf
Central Intelligence Agency, (2015). The world fact book. Retrieved from
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html
Polio Global Eradication Initiative, (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.polioeradication.org/
World Health Organization, (2015). Poliomyelitis. Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs114/en/
Our mission is to educate the people of Pakistan and the world on the nature and eradication process of Polio. We provide information on the overview of the disease, the aspects of the disease in Pakistan, and interventions that can be used to complete the eradication process of Polio worldwide. We will also touch base on the organization's, grants, and efforts being put forth to complete said process.
Vision
The vision of Project Polio is to eradicate polio worldwide by 2030. This will be accomplished through vaccinating every child in developing countries against polio causing the cases to decrease until the last endemic countries are cleared of the disease.
Background
For a multitude of years, epidemics of polio have been reported in developing countries. However, with new vaccinations available and a global effort to eradicate the disease, the number of polio cases has majorly declined. In 1988, 350,000 cases were reported in 125 countries. Fast forward to today, 2015, only 44 cases in two countries, Afghanistan and Pakistan, are facing the disease of polio (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014).
Polio is a crippling disease spread by a fecal-oral route that mainly affects children under the age of five. There are three different subtypes of polio and two types of vaccinations available including the oral polio vaccine (OPV) and the inactivated polio vaccine. The OPV, because it is an oral vaccine, can be administered by anyone, usually volunteers, and costs around an average of $0.14 (World Health Organization (WHO), 2015).
Pakistan, of the two countries, has the highest number of polio cases around the world. With a population of over 199 million people and only 2.8% of their $250 billion GDP being spent on health expenditures, they are faced with a range of challenges including insecurity, poverty, weak health systems, and poor sanitation (Central Intelligence Agency, 2015). Due to the lack of trust in the vaccination as well as the volunteers, many parents are not seeking the vaccine for their children. Add that to the poor sanitation helping spread the disease, polio in Pakistan still remains a big road block in the fight to eradicate polio.
Impact
The fight against polio greatly affects the people of Pakistan as it holds around 80% of the cases of polio globally. This has a drastic effect on the health of the population, the healthcare infrastructure, and economy. Those infected with the disease are often drastically impacted by it, with 200 infections leading to irreversible paralysis (WHO, 2015). Young children are the most common victims of polio, and this paralysis often leaves them with crutches and painful braces on their legs. The consequences of polio’s presence in Pakistan are too great to ignore. This year alone, the Pakistan government has spent over 40 million dollars on the oral vaccine of polio in an effort to eradicate the disease from the country of Pakistan (Polio Global Eradication Initiative, n.d.).
Interventions
There are several aid-based interventions currently in progress that are working both independently and as a united effort towards the eradication of polio worldwide. Some of the key health organizations at the forefront of these interventions are WHO, CDC, Rotary, USAID, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and UNICEF (Polio Global Eradication Initiative, n.d.).
The largest health intervention currently active in Pakistan is the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, also known as the GPEI (Polio Global Eradication Initiative, n.d.). Through the use of widespread vaccination campaigns, national immunization days, and educating the Pakistani people about the disease, WHO and its partners have decreased the number of polio cases by 99%, leaving only the poor and rural people of Pakistan still vulnerable to the disease (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 2014). We must find and vaccinate this last 1% in order to eradicate the disease because as long as there are enough vulnerable hosts for the polio virus, there is a potential for the disease to spread to other nearby countries.
Our group believes that mass vaccinations are the key to eradicating this disease from the remaining two endemic countries. In order to reach that last 1%, volunteers in Pakistan will have to develop ways to reach the most rural people of Pakistan and build trust between the volunteers and Pakistanis that has been lost by the current war and the Taliban’s presence in the country.
References
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2014). CDC's Work to Eradicate Polio.
Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/polio/pdf/cdcs-work-to-eradicate-polio_508.pdf
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, (2014). Poliomyelitis. Retrieved from
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/polio.pdf
Central Intelligence Agency, (2015). The world fact book. Retrieved from
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/pk.html
Polio Global Eradication Initiative, (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.polioeradication.org/
World Health Organization, (2015). Poliomyelitis. Retrieved from
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs114/en/