Polio Vaccinations

Secretary of State Pompeo visiting the Patton Museum, which commemorates the United States role in liberating Czechoslovakia, in Pilsen, Czech Republic, Aug. 11, 2020. While Pompeo was traveling in Europe last week, the UN Security Council rejected a US draft resolution to extend the Iran arms ban. The five European countries in the Council and six other nations abstained in the vote. RON PRZYSUCHA/STATE DEPARTMENT

Unicef and the World Health Organization sponsor free vaccination programs on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, reaching tens of thousands of children each month. The programs could be jeopardized by the US withdrawal from the WHO. JIM HUYLEBROEK/UNICEF
Already struggling with a surging Covid-19 pandemic, United Nations health agencies must now face the possible abdication of the United States’ leading role in fighting polio — just as the world gets tantalizingly close to eradicating it for good.

[Part 1 of this article addressed the need for Cuba’s participation in conflicts in Zaire, the Congo and Guinea-Bissau during the 1960s to remain concealed for over three decades. It covered the background to the struggles, what Cubans found in Africa, the role of race relations in Cuba’s campaigns, and the recruitment of doctors.