When MAF gets medical...

Tanzania

Pushing back against polio!

According to the WHO (World Health Organisation), polio is a highly infectious, incurable yet preventable disease, which mainly affects children under the age of five. Caused by the poliovirus, it can infect the spinal cord — causing permanent paralysis or even death.

You may not be aware that polio had once been a problem in the UK — with the last outbreak of the disease occurring in the late 1970s.

Nowadays, the polio vaccine is offered to all babies from two months old as part of the NHS’s routine immunisation programme.

It’s been so effective that the last case of naturally occurring polio in the UK was in 1984, with Europe declared polio free in 2002!

Sadly, polio returned to Malawi this year, the nation having been free from the disease for 30 years. Although Africa as a whole was only declared polio free in 2020, in just a few months this year, 250 children have been paralysed by polio across the continent. This calamity has resulted in humanitarian organisations such as the WHO, UNICEF and others collaborating to action the critical Global Polio Eradication Initiative across the region.

Polio is caught by contact with faeces (poo) from an infected person, or from them sneezing or coughing. Nice!

Already, millions of vaccine doses have treatmentSewerageplants routinely check poo samples for the poliovirus in the UK. Future job anyone? been distributed in Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi. Although Tanzania was declared polio free in 2015, a single infection in a neighbouring country poses an enormous risk to every child.

Life-saving vaccinations take flight!

Every month, MAF flies medical personnel to various locations in South Maasai, giving local communities access to healthcare. MAF’s South Maasai medical flights, which has been running since 1977, jumped into action to vaccinate children in a hard-to-reach area in north-eastern Tanzania.

Did you know, you can poop a panda?

Scientists say that the average person poops 400g a day –which amounts to 320kg over the course of a year – the same weight as… you guessed it!

Pilot Eivind Lindtjørn was more than happy to fly the medics.

Taking off from Same near the Kenyan border, Eivind flew the medical team and their cargo of vaccines to the remote village of Lesirwai to immunise children under five. Youngsters who wouldn’t have been vaccinated without MAF’s help.

According to the WHO — thanks to MAF’s support — Tanzania’s Ministry of Health successfully completed its second round of vaccinations over several days, reaching more than 12 million children in all 195 districts, which includes those living in remote areas.

Once again, the race to completely wipe out polio is on, and MAF is proud to be part of that fight!

A baby being vaccinated against polio