It’s strange to think of medical news today as “good”. But here’s some really good news: Wild polio (strands of the polio virus that occur naturally, not from a vaccine mutation) has officially been eradicated from Africa.
It hasn’t been easy; in some places in Nigeria, for instance, health workers often risked their lives to inform the public and administer vaccines among threats from groups like Boko Haram.
Read on to learn more about the challenges of informing and vaccinating an entire continent against this serious and often fatal disease, and what the future may hold.
A child in Nigeria gets a polio vaccine.
Contact Our Writer – Alysa Salzberg