How do we stop polio for good was a TED talk given by Dr. Bruce Aylward in 2011 and arranged for us by Chuck Erickson and Wayne Casper.
Dr. Aylward is Canadian by nationality and a physician-epidemiologist by training. He is originally from St. Johns, Newfoundland and did his medical training at Memorial University of Newfoundland, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Dr. Aylward joined the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1992 and worked for eight years in immunization, communicable disease control and polio eradication in the Middle East, Western Pacific, Europe, North Africa and Central and South East Asia. Dr. Aylward lead the Global Polio Eradication Initiative partnership from 1998 to 2004, where he oversaw the deployment of more than 6000 field personnel, developed new tools and vaccines and reduced the number of polio endemic countries to two. He rose to prominence as the Assistant Director of General of the WHO Polio and Emergencies Cluster. Recently he led the WHO's team during the COVID-19 pandemic in China. He opined that the key to reduction of transmission of the disease is "isolation, contact tracing and testing."
The TED talk that Dr. Aylward did on polio showed that technology has certainly changed the world. What are some of the things you have seen change, but most of you might now think about the polio vaccine. Today many of us assume that everything will be okay, but just a few years ago we still had polio cases. Since 1950 up to 2010 there were several cases in the U.S. But today most of those cases have been eradicated because of a vaccine. In 2010 there were two countries that were on the opposite sides of the world who hadn't had hardly any polio cases and then all of sudden they had a terrible breakout. Those cases were transmitted from other people traveling around and carry the virus. Today, thanks to the vaccine the polio cases have been reduced in those countries and it is under control.
Polio is still a significant virus in two countries today, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The one thing we need to do is "snuff" out the virus permanently. The poliovirus can live in people, but not for very long, but id does not like the environment. There has been 10 to 20 million volunteers who have gone into many of these foreign countries to give the vaccine despite the dangers such as being a remote area, dodging bullets, and working in the slums to help eradicate the poliovirus. In 1999 the Type 2 poliovirus was totally eradicated. Rotary International has sent millions of volunteers to many of these countries to give the vaccine to children and with the help of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation have 99% eradicated polio around the world.
To get this type of vaccine it took lots of research and lots of testing to make sure that it would work. As Chuck Erickson pointed out to us that it will take lots of research and testing to make sure the COVID-19 vaccine really works well. So we shouldn't hurry up with the vaccine -- take it slow and get it right. As Dr. Aylward said in this podcast == "This foreign aid at its most heroic."
Thanks Chuck for sharing this great TED-talk with Dr. Aylward.