Fri., Feb. 16, 2018
Children get the polio vaccine in their house in Kabul. Afghanistan and Pakistan are the only countries that saw new cases last year.
(TOMAS MUNITA / The Associated Press)
This year will likely be the last to see new cases, and only in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It’s a huge step toward official eradication, which has only ever happened once before.
When Ramesh Ferris was born in southern India in 1979, there were an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 new cases of polio being recorded around the globe each year.
At 6 months of age, he became one of them.
“The polio virus paralyzed my legs,” he says.
Then, two things happened that were tantamount to miracles, says Ferris, who would become an activist in the fight against the disease.
“I came to Canada, where I received corrective surgery … and learned to walk for the first time at the age of three and a half,” says Ferris, who was adopted at age 2 by Anglican bishop Ron Ferris of the Yukon.
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