Bill Gates, chairman and co-founder of Microsoft Corp., contributes $200 million a year towards the cause of eradicating polio through Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The tech giant-turned-philanthropist is hopeful that India could eradicate the crippling, potentially deadly virus by 2013.
He hopes to stop the spread of polio, and make it the first infectious disease to be obliterated from the face of the earth since smallpox, which was wiped out in 1979.
In spite of the impressive gains made about the eradication of polio, “the last 1 percent remains a true danger,” he said.
About Poliovirus
Poliovirus is a human enterovirus composed of single stranded RNA genome and protein capsid.
The viral infection is asymptomatic, that is, people who are infected show almost no signs of the infection, and hence it is difficult to detect. This also makes it easy to transmit to others.
In another development, Oliver Rosenbauer, a WHO spokesman in Geneva, talked about surveillance officers detecting poliovirus in raw sewage in samples collected in Mumbai in mid-November.
As for the treatment, at least three doses of polio vaccine are required to stop the virus dead in its tracks, whereas the vaccine used against smallpox does it just after a single inoculation.
At present, there are four countries where poliovirus has not been completely eradicated: India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Nigeria. According to Heymann’s commentary in 'The Lancet,' polio was eradicated first in Europe, the Americas, and Western Pacific region.
By the year 1988, immunization had reached 78 percent in these regions, whereas immunization lagged at 58 percent in the other regions where poliovirus continues its wiggle.
Cause for optimism
India recorded a low number of polio cases in 2010.
Quite taken with the national, regional, and sub-regional campaigns against polio, Gates said, “2010 had been a great year for India. If the case reduction continues, there is a good chance to get the cases to zero in the next two years.”
He also intends to make further trips to India, to bring home the message that the last gasp of the virus is a dangerous one, and should be firmly put out.
