Panama’s Role in Silent Polio Victory

By Dr R. Richel

This week, the world reached a milestone that it has been fighting for for decades. In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, it went unnoticed by many. On Tuesday, the vilified WHO declared the African continent polio-free. A healthcare success of dimensions that are difficult to beat.

 In 1985, 350,000 people, mostly children, suffered from this terrible viral infection. Many of those who did not die during the acute illness were condemned to live with severe motor sequelae for the rest of their lives. This, despite the fact that vaccines against this infection had been available since the 1950s.

During the 1985 Rotary International world convention, the organization’s president, the Mexican physician Carlos Canseco, launched a challenge to make Rotary the spearhead of an ambitious program that would seek to eradicate this disease from the face of the earth.

Thus was born the flagship program for Rotarians worldwide, which we call PolioPlus. That year, Rotarians pledged to donate $120 million for vaccines.

In the 35 years since then, Rotarians have contributed more than $1.3 billion to purchase oral vaccines, immunizing 2.5 billion children in 122 countries around the world. Thousands of Rotarians have participated in vaccination brigades, traveling to remote places, far away from their countries, to vaccinate the population. It is assumed that, if you quantify the time represented by volunteer hours, Rotary’s contribution to the PolioPlus campaign has been in 30 years, greater than$8 trillion.

India was, until recently, the country most affected by cases of polio. Rotary began a massive vaccination campaign throughout India, in which thousands of volunteers participated, breaking the record for vaccinations in a single day, reaching figures that were around two and a half million children vaccinated daily.

These efforts received further impetus in 2007 when the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation joined PolioPlus, offering to donate $2 for every dollar Rotarians donate. That year, Rotarians donated $110 million. Since then, the Gates Foundation has already donated more than $350 million in total.

In 2015, Nigeria had its last case of wild polio. After five years without cases, Africa has been declared free of the disease. The last two countries where there are cases are Afghanistan and Pakistan, where wars between radical groups have made it very difficult for vaccination programs to succeed.

These results clearly demonstrate to us the success that is obtained when science works hand in hand with the international community and philanthropic organizations to achieve common goals.

Pseudo Science
Although it made no noise, Panama has had its direct participation in these achievements. For years, our country has been an important center for vaccine research, with particular emphasis on polio. Several studies developed in Panama have been published in important medical journals in the world. And, the Cevaxin vaccine research center, where more than one hundred Panamanian professionals and independent researchers from Hospital del Niño participate, has been invited by the Gates Foundation to participate in its global vaccine development program.

In fact, the latest oral vaccine, safer than previous ones, and that has served to cut the few outbreaks that remain in the world, was developed based on research done in Belgium and Panama. Sadly, an outburst of pseudoscience, sponsored by a few doctors and “influencers” who barely know how to get sick in medicine, has taken on the task of questioning whether research is being done in Panama to develop vaccines against Covid-19. Luckily science does not waste time on these hindrances.

What has been achieved this week in global public health was surely overshadowed by the “box office” news of the moment. The Covid-19 pandemic and the European outbreaks, the United States elections, the racial violence in Wisconsin and the hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. However, for all who have worked to eradicate polio from the face of our planet, it has been a giant step towards achieving this ambitious goal. It is time to congratulate the scientists, philanthropists, physicians, and Rotarians who have done their part to achieve the success of this magnitude. With each passing day, we are getting closer to the total eradication of this terrible disease. !! Congratulations!!

The author is a physician and a Rotarian