The certification of this milestone announced on a videoconference organized by the World Health Organization (WHO), means that the 47 African countries in the WHO region have eradicated the viral disease.
"This is a historic moment for Africa," declared the director of the WHO for Africa, Mathsidiso Moeto.
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Poliomyelitis, provoked by the wild poliovirus (PVS), is an acute infectious and contagious disease, mostly affecting children, which attacks the nervous system and can cause irreversible paralysis.
Yet thanks to an unusual sense of collective consciousness, along with dedicated financial resources ($19 billion over the past 30 years), only two countries worldwide present cases of the wild poliovirus, Afghanistan (29 in 2020), and Pakistan (58).