Following a major global health milestone last month, Apollo Hospitals Dhaka urges the Bangladeshi community to join them alongside Rotary in the global fight to eradicate polio by participating in their social media awareness campaign in recognition of World Polio Day on October 24. Bangladesh is one of the 11 South Asian countries declared polio-free by the World Health Organisation (WHO) with the last case of wild polio-virus transmission recorded in August 2000.
This comes at an important time in the fight to eradicate polio, which would be only the second human disease to be eradicated, after smallpox. In September, the WHO declared Africa’s last polio-endemic country, Nigeria, polio-free, leaving only Pakistan and Afghanistan to have not attempted in stopping the virus. In 1988, when Rotary and its partners committed to eradicating the disease, polio paralysed more than 350,000 children per year in 125 countries, more than 1,000 per day. Since that time, the number of polio cases has been reduced almost completely, with less than 50 cases in two countries to date in 2015.
