Health Equity and Polio Eradication

Oluwaseun Akinyemi, MD, MPH, FWACP, FRSPH, PhD
College of Medicine, University of Ibadan & University College Hospital, Nigeria

Please review the reading Polio outbreak among nomads in Chad: Outbreak response and lessons learned. Then, consider this excerpt from the video:

I’d like you to consider whether it’s ethical to reach the world’s most disadvantaged population, and then only provide them with polio vaccine when polio is not the most serious health issue affecting them? Imagine going all the way to reach the population in a very difficult to reach area of your country, and then only getting there with polio vaccine, where there is an outbreak of measles, or the children have diarrhea, or they’re suffering from malaria, and then they are wondering what is it about polio? Why are you only coming all the time with polio?

So, what might you do as the director of polio program in Chad?

Post your thoughts to this excerpt in the discussion.