UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) said on Friday that every day a thousand or so children are being protected from disability as part of a 26-year global effort to eradicate polio through a worldwide campaign that has immunised millions of previously unreached children across the globeSome 10 million people today would otherwise have been paralysed, while an additional 1.5 million lives have been saved through the routine administration of Vitamin A during polio vaccination drives, Unicef said in a press release, which outlined the successes of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative and the challenges that remain.

The annual number of polio cases has fallen from 350,000 in 1988, to 416 in 2013, and 243 so far this year – an extraordinary drop of more than 99 per cent. All but three countries where polio was firmly entrenched – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan – have eliminated the virus within their borders. And multiple outbreaks have been contained over the past 26 years.

“In 1988 polio was a leading cause of childhood disability,” said Unicef Executive Director Anthony Lake in a statement. “In country after country since then, a generation of children has grown up without the spectre of polio.”

“The success of the eradication effort – reaching some of the most disadvantaged communities in some of the most dangerous circumstances – proves that it is possible to reach all children,” Mr Lake added.

Published in Dawn, October 25th, 2014