Costs of the election campaigns of two presidential hopefuls in the US could have been allocated for vaccination of all under-five-year-old children against polio for a period of five years.

Polio is an acute viral disease, which attacks man’s digestion system or nervous system. It is highly contagious. Five to ten percent of polio patients, which are under five years old, die.

However, the rest are paralyzed. There is no treatment of polio and this disease can only be prevented via vaccination.

Promotion of usage of vaccines has led to a significant drop of the number of polio patients as of the year 1988 to this date.

 However, in some regions, such as the Indian Subcontinent and Afghanistan a larger number of polio patients are reported, compared to other regions of the world.

The World Health Organization has warned that restrictions of access to vaccines can lead to 200,000 new cases of polio per annum, round the world.

The cost of each polio vaccination stands at 50 cents. According to latest figures, 1.9 billion people in the world are under the age of 15. There are 630 million children under the age of five across the world.

MR/SS