Greetings Polio Warriors:
 
      The trend continues in the right direction.  No new cases of the wild polio virus this last week.   
 
      Eighty Seven - That’s the number of days since the last case of the wild polio virus Type 1 occurred in Afghanistan.  
 
      Sixty -  That’s the number of days since the last case of the wild polio virus Type 1 occurred in Pakistan.
 
      Four -  That’s the total number of cases of the wild polio virus Type 1 that occurred in the world since New Years Day.
                   One in Afghanistan and three in Pakistan  (Reporting date of 24 March 2021) 
 
      Thirty Two - Thats the number of cases of the wild polio virus Type 1 that occurred in 2020 on this date. 
 
 
      OK, time once again to do the victory dance around your office chair…😊
 
      Once again however, positive environmental samples were found in Pakistan, but only 3 compared to last week’s 6.  
 
  • And although we had 6 new cases of the vaccine derived poliovirus reported this week, that’s down more than 50% from last week’s count of 13.  Total cases year to date are now thirty-two, compared to thirty-eight last year at this time.  So we are seeing improvement here as well.  Note that although the report below states 8 new cases reported, only 6 occurred in 2021, the remaining 2 occurred in the 2020 calendar year.  
 
      It was reported this week that Nigeria has started the roll out of the newest weapon in our quivers, the novel oral vaccine.  Liberia is also ready to start soon, followed by14 or 15 other countries in the queue.  As a reminder, this new vaccine, like the original Sabin vaccine, contains a live attenuated virus, but that attenuated virus is genetically altered to not be able to mutate back to full strength like the Sabin vaccine can do in rare instances, causing paralysis in a child, especially in under immunized communities.