“The Path Towards Polio Eradication in the Americas” Virtual Lecture on Monday, March 29

As part of the Ruth and John Moskop History of Medicine Lecture Series, the Medical History Interest Group invites you to attend The Path Towards Polio Eradication in the Americas on March 29th. This lecture, presented by Elizabeth Thrush, MPH, Polio Advocacy Officer, United Nations Foundation (UNF), begins at 2 p.m. on Microsoft Teams.

Please to RSVP to carpenterl15@ecu.edu by March 26th.

The Topic:

In the early 1950s, polio outbreaks were widespread, and greatly feared across the globe. While the advent of polio vaccines after 1955 helped provide the tool to bring polio under control, not all children had equitable access to vaccines. As a result, hundreds of thousands of children across 125 countries were still being paralyzed every year from this now-preventable disease. In response, the world launched the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) in 1988, with the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, Rotary International, and U.S. Centers for Disease Control as key partners.

Over the past three decades, the polio program has made great advances toward global polio eradication, eliminating 99.9% of cases globally. This presentation will take a look at the history of polio, the progress of polio elimination in the Americas, and include a current update on where global polio eradication stands today.

The Speaker:

Elizabeth Thrush is the Polio Advocacy Officer at the United Nations Foundation (UNF). In this role, she supports UNF’s polio and broader global health portfolio, including providing advocacy, communications, and resource mobilization support for the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) and expanding UNF’s work on polio transition, which is the process of ensuring a smooth wind down of GPEI once polio is eradicated.

Prior to joining UNF, Elizabeth worked with the Immunization Unit at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), which is the Regional Office of the World Health Organization (WHO) for the Americas. While there, she supported the countries in the Americas to meet the goals and objectives of the Polio Eradication Endgame Strategic Plan, including the introduction of the inactivated polio virus vaccine, the globally synchronized switch from the trivalent oral polio vaccine to the bivalent vaccine, and documenting the legacy of polio eradication. She has also published articles on polio in various scientific journals.

Ms. Thrush has a Master’s of Public Health (MPH) focused on global health and behavior change communication, a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, and a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish.

More Information:

This event is free and open to the public.

Lectures may be video recorded.

Learn more about the MHIG lectures and view an archive of previous recordings. https://hsl.ecu.edu/events/mhig-lectures/