The World Health Organization (WHO) has confirmed a third case of polio in Nigeria. According to reports, the patient is a toddler living in Monguno, a local government area located in the state of Borno that was recently liberated from Boko Haram extremists. The new case comes on the heels of Nigeria being declared a […]

Reports are coming in from Pakistani police that gunmen have killed Dr. Zaka Ullah, a physician who was instrumental in an anti-polio drive in Peshawar, Pakistan. The shooting took place on Monday while he was returning home from evening prayers, but it remains unclear whether he was targeted for his role in the country’s anti-polio […]

In a video interview, Micaela Martinez, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University, discusses how vector seasonality can potentially be used to eradicate polio worldwide. According to Martinez, polio outbreaks are more common in the summer, but often in countries where the wild poliovirus is still prevalent, such […]

Officials arrested three people in Peshawar, Pakistan, after they refused to allow their children to receive the polio vaccine during a three-day immunization drive. The three parents are all residents of the Takhatabad area of the city and were sent to prison for their actions. They will be released once they have submitted written apologies […]

It’s been exactly 100 years this summer that New York City experienced its first outbreak of polio. Earlier this summer, U.S. health officials made the announcement that the first cases of Zika virus, which can occur as the result of a mosquito bite from an infected insect, had been verified in the continental United States. […]

Health departments throughout Punjab, Pakistan, are diligently completing computerized records of children under the age of five throughout the region before an upcoming polio vaccination drive later this month. The drive, which will take place August 29 through 31 in cities throughout the Punjab Province, is expected to be one of the final pushes to […]

After it was announced earlier this month that two new cases of the poliovirus cropped up in Nigeria, details are starting to emerge of what exactly happened. According to health officials, the African nation has been polio-free for two years prior to the outbreak, however, the cases were both found in the northern part of […]

The World Health Organization (WHO) commended Nigeria for its prompt management of a new polio outbreak that occurred earlier this month in the African country’s Borno State. The commendation came during regional director Matshiduso Moeti’s address during the 66th session of the African Regional Committee Meeting in Ethiopia, where she applauded Nigeria’s Federal Government for […]

In an essay, author Judith Shaw Beatty recalls how, in 1949, she contracted polio, which was the very same year that approximately 42,000 other Americans were diagnosed with the debilitating illness. In her essay, she writes about her time spent in an iron lung in the local hospital, the poor treatment she received while there, […]

Is it possible that terrorists are the reason why polio hasn’t been completely wiped out? Some people have been asking this very question. For example, two of the last countries where polio is present—Pakistan and Afghanistan—are also areas with a strong terrorist presence. In Afghanistan, members of ISIS have been known to block immunization drives […]