Dr. Dino SgarabottoMalattie Infettive e Tropicali

Azienda Ospedaliera di Padova

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Close to ending polio??

• Eradication is possible: 99% of the work is done!!

• If you look at a map of the three endemic countries, you see that polio is fairly localized to specific regions within those countries.

• It is really just a matter of mustering the financial resources and political will to overcome this final hurdle.

• That’s why the international community is declaring this emergency.

Nuovi casi di polio 2013-2014

Polio e guerra

Militant ambush kills 12 of polio workers escort in Pakistan

A policeman stands guard as female polio workers wait to give polio vaccine drops to children

War and corruption

• Polio was meant be a thing of the past. A global campaign came tantalisingly close to wiping out the disease altogether.

• Now polio, which can kill or paralyse a child in hours, is endemic only in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. So far this year, Pakistan has had 217 polio cases, a 14-year high accounting for 85 percent of instances around the world.

• The disease spreads easily from person to person, and Pakistan has already exported the virus to Syria, China, Israel and Egypt. Experts say complacency is not an option and the government has called the situation an "emergency".

• Yet as the latest vaccination campaign kicked off this week in the broiling, garbage-strewn alleys of Pakistan's biggest city, Karachi, vaccination workers said they had not received stipends from the provincial government for months.

Health workers and local culture

Health workers and local culture

Conclusioni

• Forse non riusciremo eradicare la polio se gli interventi sanitari non sono possibili a causa della guerra o della guerra civile

• Gli sforzi andranno concentrati per evitare la diffusione della polio nei paesi limitrofi a causa dei movimenti di popolazione (profugi e rifugiati)

• L’azione del Rotary resta essenziale anche se il traguardo del successo si sposta in avanti