Polio transmitted from person-to-person mainly through faecal matter entering the mouth.
One in 200 infections leads to irreversible paralysis.
Among those paralysed, WHO estimates that five to 10 per cent die when their breathing muscles become immobilised.
Africa has been declared free of endemic “wild” polio after a three-decade campaign against a disease that once paralysed 75,000 children on the continent every year.
This makes the highly contagious disease caused by a virus that attacks the nervous system the second to be eradicated from the continent after smallpox 40 years ago, the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) Africa director said on Tuesday. However, a minor strain still infects hundreds.
