In part 2 of this blog I took this short French newspaper article:

https://www.leparisien.fr/societe/sante/la-polio-eradiquee-en-afrique-annonce-l-oms-25-08-
2020-8372946.php

…and wrote probably the least literal translation (into English, my mother tongue) that you
will ever see. Before it follows let me say that it wasn’t only a matter of re-arranging sentence
structure as much as I could, or using synonyms as much as possible. No, I made a
determined effort to relocate words from one sentence to another, and include new words in
this English version or even omit words in the original that I decided were basically
superfluous. NB Please bear in mind that, while I do everything in power to prevent my
translations in my work from sounding literal, this is meant to be but an exaggeratedly non-
literal translation and, in all candour, I totally disagree that I would otherwise have translated
this article like this.
START
WHO claims “polio” wiped out in Africa after 30-year effort
Ever since the emergence of the final cases in Nigeria four years ago, on Tuesday the African
continent was declared “a wild poliovirus-free zone”. What it took saved the lives of 1.9
million children.
It’s been four years since the emergence of the final cases in North East Nigeria. Now, on
Tuesday, the World Health Organisation (WHO) finally reported the good news as it declared
that the African continent “a wild poliovirus-free zone”.
The WHO showed its delight about this in a press release saying that “the efforts contributed
by governments, those in healthcare and local communities saw 1.8 million children saved”
from this disease.
This official statement was made by videoconference and it has improved relationships
between (if anyone) the Chief Executive of the WHO (Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, of
Ethiopia), the WHO’s regional director for Africa (Matshidiso Moeti), and the billionnaires /
philanthropists who are Nigeria’s Aliko Dangote and America’s Bill Gates.
“It’s a fantastic victory – a real achievement”, commented Dr. Tunji Funsho of the Nigerian
Polio Committee, which is part of the Rotary International association. This Nigerian doctor,
who dedicated his life to this cause, made his rejoicing evident when he said, “We embarked
on this challenge more than 30 years ago, and saying that I’m happy would be a massive
understatement!”
Winning populations over was a huge job
Nigeria is a huge African country with a population of 200 million – it was also the epicentre
of the disease in the world in the beginning of the 2000s. In the Muslim north, pressure from
Salafist circles saw anti-polio vaccination campaigns halted between 2003 and 2004, the
result of a rumour that it was all part of a vast international plot aimed at sterilising Muslims.

It took a huge amount of work with local traditional and religious leaders before their
populations would agree to allowing their children to becoming vaccinated. “People trusted
their leaders more than their politicians, since we were living amongst them,” explained
Grema Mundube, a community leader of Monguno, a city located in the extreme North-East
of the country. “We were in discussion with them, and we let them know that we had
vaccinated our own children, and eventually they allowed the application of the vaccine with
them as well.”
In areas that are wholly controlled by Jihadists, the WHO and its partners approached
populations on roads or markets with the goal of creating a network of “health informers” and
“sentinels” – people responsible for alerting others of cases or potential epidemics. “We had
to build trust with these populations – for example, we would give them free medical care,”
mentioned Dr. Audu.
Today it is estimated that only 30,000 children remain “inaccessible” – scientific experts
claim that this figure is “too low” to bring about transmission at an epidemic level.
Afghanistan and Pakistan remain affected
Brought on by the “wild poliovirus”, poliomyelitis is an infectious disease both acute and
contagious which mainly infects children; it affects the spinal cord and may lead to
irreversible paralysis.
There was an endemic of it all over the world until a vaccine for it was created in the 1950s.
While the richest countries on the planet soon had access to it, Asia and Africa would remain
major infection risk areas for a long time. In 1988 the WHO documented 350,000 cases
throughout the world, this including more than 70,000 cases in Africa alone in 1996.
Thanks to a rare kind of collective awareness and substantial financial investments (19 billion
dollars over a period of 30 years), today there are only two countries in the world with people
who have polio: Afghanistan (29 cases in 2020) and Pakistan (58 cases).
Nevertheless, Africa must ensure that no case originating from either of these countries will
undermine this success, and ensure the vaccination of a sufficient proportion of its children, if
the whole continent is to be immunised.
Moreover, on Tuesday the Congolese Health Minister declared in Kinshasa that a deadly
measles epidemic, which claimed the lives of more than 7,000 children under five in the
Democratic Republic of Congo over a period of 25 months, had come to an end – a fine coincidence.