Last year there were only 22 reported cases—but until the disease is completely wiped out, there’s a chance of a tragic resurgence
Last month, India celebrated its fourth anniversary of being polio-free. It was an incredible achievement considering that about 150,000 cases were reported every year in the late 1970s—when I contracted polio as an infant in Bombay. I am a polio survivor, but the virus left me in the care of an orphanage, paralyzed from the hips down. Fortunately, I was adopted at the age of three and moved to America where extensive surgeries enabled me to regain some degree of mobility.
Fast forward to 2017, and there were only 22 reported cases of polio worldwide, all of which were in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We are close to achieving the global eradication of this devastating disease. But, as the saying goes, “it ain’t over till it’s over.”