Completion Of Polio Vaccine Campaign In Middle East Critical To Eradication Efforts

Huffington Post: Polio: Why It Matters To You
Batoul Abuharb, a student at the University of Houston College of Optometry and co-founder of Dunia Health, and Cherie Fathy, a student at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine and a project assistant at Dunia Health

Discussing a recent outbreak of polio in Syria and the risk of the virus spreading to other countries, including the U.S., Abuharb and Fathy write, “The World Health Organization has recently announced that over 20 million children need to be vaccinated throughout the Middle East. The one-time vaccination campaign will take anywhere from six to eight months to complete and will require over 50 million doses of vaccine. This complex task, only complicated by the regional strife, stands as the only solution to preventing the spread of this crippling disease. The ultimate goal is to ensure that this preventable disease does not ravage the future of the Middle East by paralyzing the future of the youth. And with countries like India reaching a milestone of three years since the last reported case of polio, we are hopeful that eradication of this disease is within reach” (2/5).

The KFF Daily Global Health Policy Report summarized news and information on global health policy from hundreds of sources, from May 2009 through December 2020. All summaries are archived and available via search.

KFF Headquarters: 185 Berry St., Suite 2000, San Francisco, CA 94107 | Phone 650-854-9400
Washington Offices and Barbara Jordan Conference Center: 1330 G Street, NW, Washington, DC 20005 | Phone 202-347-5270

www.kff.org | Email Alerts: kff.org/email | facebook.com/KFF | twitter.com/kff

The independent source for health policy research, polling, and news, KFF is a nonprofit organization based in San Francisco, California.