World Polio Day 2020

World Polio Day is celebrated on October 24th. It was established by Rotary International to commemorate the birth of Jonas Salk, who led the first team to develop a vaccine against poliomyelitis.

Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2020

Key-Points

As per the WHO, since 1980, the cases of wild poliovirus have decreased by over 99.9 per cent as a result of vaccination efforts made around the world.

World Polio Day was established by Rotary International over a decade ago to commemorate the birth of Jonas Salk, who led the first team to develop the vaccine against the disease.

Polio is a crippling and potentially deadly disease that affects the nervous system.

There are three variants of the poliovirus, numbered 1 to 3.

For a country to be declared polio-free, the wild transmission of all three kinds has to be stopped. For eradication, cases of both wild and vaccine-derived polio infection have to be reduced to zero. India was declared polio-free in January 2014, after three years of zero cases.