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   Young Luis Fermin is lucky to be alive. When an explosion rocked the main square in the remote Peruvian town of Pichanaqui in 1989, a woman ducked into a church to escape the fighting between the army and the guerilla group known as Shining Path.As she hid in the empty church, the woman heard a baby cry and discovered a hungry newborn abandoned in the pews. Local authorities never found the parents of Luis and he was finally left with the woman, a poor mother with three children of her own. It was a tough start for a little boy whose whole life has been a struggle. When he was just two years old, Luis became very sick with flaccid paralysis. Suspecting a possible case of polio, Peru’s Ministry of Health, with international help, began a massive campaign to vaccinate all children and in 1994, Peru along with the rest of the Americas was certified polio-free. Today, Luis lives in Lima with a loving family. He still faces major challenges but, with great effort and determination, he has made significant progress in his physical and mental rehabilitation. In 1988, when a coalition of UN agencies and private partners began the global campaign to eradicate polio by 2005, the disease was still endemic on five continents. Today, it is found only in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the Indian sub-continent. Three million people who would have been paralyzed are walking because they have been immunized. Nearly 2 billion children in the last five years, including 147 million in a single day in India, have received the oral vaccine during "National Immunization Days". Since the key to success will be reaching every child, especially in remote, war-torn regions, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called for "Days of Tranquility", or temporary truces. And it is working. In Afghanistan, 5.3 million children were immunized when the ruling Taliban allowed the UN to cross its territories to deliver vaccines in opposition-controlled areas. In Sudan’s Nuba Mountains, volunteers walked 10 hours to vaccinate over 66,000 children after the government and the rebel Sudan People’s Liberation Army agreed on a cease-fire. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative is spearheaded by two UN agencies — the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) — and two private partners — Rotary International and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Governments, private foundations, development banks and corporations are also part of the coalition. They include the United Nations Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement and corporations such as Aventis Pasteur and De Beers. In all of human history, only one other disease — smallpox in the 1970s — has been eradicated. FIND OUT MORE about the UN’s work to fight polio and other life-threatening diseases by going to the links next to Luis. ADDITIONAL HEALTH STORIES: Ainura gets a second opinion Kuheli starts a clinic | Genet gets treatment Photo credit: Karen Kasmauski |
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