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The only way to truly eradicate some of these infectious diseases is through extremely high vaccination rates. For example, right now there is a global effort to eradicate polio (see http://polioeradication.org/).

Polio has disabled or killed millions and millions of people throughout time. Its eradication would be an amazing, tremendous gift to the future generations of humans who would no longer ever have to suffer death and disability from polio (regardless of vaccination status). The only way eradication occurs is through extremely high vaccination rates - right now, a small number of people in a small number of countries are preventing polio eradication, but there is hope with a huge investment and substantial human effort that polio can be the next disease eradicated.

In this way, vaccination is about so much more than whether your child gets a disease. It's about whether your neighbor gets a disease, and it's about reducing the burden of infectious disease on people around the world for the rest of time. Holding back on vaccination because of an extremely low risk of vaccine injury is very selfish and shortsighted.

I've been following the polio numbers week by week for some years now. (Polio eradication will be one of the great achievements of human history.)

This news is particularly important because this year for the first time ever "circulating vaccine derived polio virus" (cVDPV, where live weakened polio in vaccines has mutated back to virulence) is causing more polio cases than wild polio virus (WPV).
Here are the full-year numbers for the last few years:
      WPV cVDPV
2011 583 67
2012 202 68
2013 416 65
2014 359 56
2015 74 32
2016 37 5

(2017 missing because the year hasn't yet finished.) Here are the numbers for start of year to approx 9 August:
          WPV cVDPV
2014 138 31
2015 29 10
2016 19 3
2017 8 37
(I only have 2014 onwards ready to hand in week-by-week breakdown.) Mostly this is due to a major outbreak of cVDPV in Syria (30 cases).

(There is a delay of up to about 2 months between a polio case in the field and it getting reported to central authorities and added to the official numbers, but the numbers above are all what was reported at that time of year, so the comparison is fair.)

It is looking reasonable to hope that the last ever WPV case will be this year or next year, but cVDPV eradication is looking harder. Polio is a disease that can lurk asymptomatically in a population, so it will be three years after the last detection of WPV before it is declared eradicated. (Nigeria had over two years of being apparently polio free before a few cases re-emerged.)

There were three strains of WPV. WPV2 and WPV3 have been eradicated, but until recently vaccines were still vaccinating against WPV2, and it is this vaccine strain (cVDPV2) which is causing most of the problems (all of the cVDPV cases so far this year are cVDPV2.) Now WPV2 vaccine is not in the standard vaccinations, and is only used in response to a cVDPV2 outbreak.

The countries still with WPV endemic are Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Nigeria has had cases recently enough that we can't safely say it is free of WPV.

The countries which have had cVDPV cases in 2015 or later are Syria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Madagascar, Lao, Guinea, Ukraine, Myanmar, Nigeria.

Find more at
http://polioeradication.org/po...

My grandfather is going to throw a party once polio is officially eliminated.

How long have we been vaccinating against polio and it still isn't officially eliminated? It sure looks like the mass vaccinations are not working to "officially eliminate" anything.

Because superstitious uneducated villagers resist vaccination in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan and the United States.

That's ok, because they weren't intended to.

Seriously? That's your official position? http://polioeradication.org/me...
http://www.globalhealthstrateg...

Our kids might be the last that have to be vaccinated for polio.

The first kid that isn't vaccinated against polio is taking the lives of every other child they contact into their hands. That's the argument the mandatory vaccination proponents use.

The reality is, an un-vaccinated child is no threat to others, because the others have been vaccinated to prevent them from contracting that disease. Either vaccinations protect people from getting a disease or they don't. You can't argue that one child can spread death to all his vaccinated neighbors with one voice, and then argue that vaccinating him will prevent him from getting, and carrying, that same disease with another.

And sorry, but the word "freedom" means that not everyone must do everything science tells them is good and right, and that will do the most good for society as a whole.

Like stopping for red lights. That's the nanny state telling me what to do, and this tyranny will not stand!!!

It is very nearly eradicated globally. Good thing too.

The paralysis aspect is horrible. Those who got the disease didn't know if they would be hit by the paralysis. Those who were hit with the paralysis didn't know if it would become permanent.

Some people who had the paralysis hit lungs or heart and didn't make it to the hospital quickly enough were occasionally considered lucky. Some very unfortunate people were condemned to spend the rest of their lives on a ventilator. I knew several people (most are dead today) who had deformed faces, arms, and legs from the virus resulting in permanent paralysis. I knew several older folks with a gravely whispered voice as a result of the paralysis. I heard horror stories about people fighting in lines as the vaccine became available in the 1960s.

Last year the WHO declared a surge in polio as a world health emergency, it had jumped from below 200 globally known cases to over 400.

They track the progress and update it weekly. the web site says there are 209 year to date with a new outbreak in Syria.

It is a horrible, destructive disease. The Gates Foundation has made enormous donations, $1.8B last year. This year the Larry Ellison foundation threw in another $100M. The disease is so incredibly close to global eradication, it just needs that one final little nudge to the finish line.

The world should free itself from the following countries: Somalia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Afghanistan:

http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek.aspx

From the Polio Eradication Website:

Polio remains endemic in three countries – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Until poliovirus transmission is interrupted in these countries, all countries remain at risk of importation of polio, especially in the ‘poliovirus importation belt’ of countries from west Africa to the Horn of Africa.

Only 372 cases worldwide last year! If we're careful, if we can convince certain political groups that polio is not an appropriate weapon of terrorism(*), we'll soon eliminate it completely.

Interestingly, polio is monitored from the sewage system in India. Since that appears to work for polio, people are thinking about using this method to monitor other things: other diseases, weapons manufacture, drug manufacture, and so on.

(*) Not making this up - some groups in Afghanistan think that spreading polio is a good way to get back at the Great Satan.

From the Polio Eradication Website:

Polio remains endemic in three countries – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Until poliovirus transmission is interrupted in these countries, all countries remain at risk of importation of polio, especially in the ‘poliovirus importation belt’ of countries from west Africa to the Horn of Africa.

Only 372 cases worldwide last year! If we're careful, if we can convince certain political groups that polio is not an appropriate weapon of terrorism(*), we'll soon eliminate it completely.

Interestingly, polio is monitored from the sewage system in India. Since that appears to work for polio, people are thinking about using this method to monitor other things: other diseases, weapons manufacture, drug manufacture, and so on.

(*) Not making this up - some groups in Afghanistan think that spreading polio is a good way to get back at the Great Satan.

From the Polio Eradication Website:

Polio remains endemic in three countries – Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan. Until poliovirus transmission is interrupted in these countries, all countries remain at risk of importation of polio, especially in the ‘poliovirus importation belt’ of countries from west Africa to the Horn of Africa.

Only 372 cases worldwide last year! If we're careful, if we can convince certain political groups that polio is not an appropriate weapon of terrorism(*), we'll soon eliminate it completely.

Interestingly, polio is monitored from the sewage system in India. Since that appears to work for polio, people are thinking about using this method to monitor other things: other diseases, weapons manufacture, drug manufacture, and so on.

(*) Not making this up - some groups in Afghanistan think that spreading polio is a good way to get back at the Great Satan.

Current information on the fight against polio can be found here: http://www.polioeradication.org/Dataandmonitoring/Poliothisweek.aspx While India is polio-free, the worldwide cases actually increased last year. Well, let's hope for the best, that the optimistic assessment of Dr. Jafari is true.

If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Bill Gates did no such thing as give away his fortune, he merely transferred it to a foundation to avoid taxes, and still exercises complete control over it. This is a matter of public record. Gates foundation invests the absolute minimum in actual charitable work that is required to maintain its charitable foundation status, and more often than not in less than worthy forms such as subsidizing the purchase of Microsoft software or subsidizing the purchase of patented drugs, cash flow that flows straight back in to Gates' considerable investments in major drug companies. As a philatrophist, Bill Gates is no Andrew Carnegie.

Since you claim your rant is a "matter of public record" it's a shame you couldn't cite any sources. Whatever my personal feelings about the guy, I freely acknowledge that he's given away more than any other person in history. Over $1 billion just to eradicate polio http://www.polioeradication.org/Financing/Contributions.aspx. That's better than a wikipedia link on a different topic. Over to you...

No I was thinking how I read somewhere that polio got trapped in North Africa and that the "final push" would get rid of it but then their anti-vaxers showed up and it got out. (Although I'm not even sure if that's even true because I've since read that the whole time it was still endemic to the Indian subcontinent so even if they eradicated it in North Africa there was at least one more reserve.)

My understanding is not complete, but I recall that it was down to very few countries at one point -- like 2 or 3. Nigeria was one, and there was a group of conservative Moslem community leaders there who convinced villagers not to get the vaccine. Some of those people got the bug, took it to Mecca for the Hajj pilgrimage and infected people from several other countries. I don't know if India and Pakistan were ever clear, but they are two of the hot spots receiving the most attention these days. You can read the report at http://www.polioeradication.org/Aboutus/Annualreports.aspx#fragment-1 but here's the slashdot version:

Success in India was the most remarkable milestone, deemed “magnificent” by the Independent Monitoring Board (IMB) of the GPEI. Long considered one of the most challenging countries in which to eradicate polio, India accomplished what the IMB called the “systematic enforcement of best practice” to reach over 98% of children with polio vaccine. The country freed itself of endemic polio and finally laid to rest the question of whether polio eradication is technically feasible.

Globally, polio cases fell to half the level of the previous year. In two of the four countries with re-established transmission of polio, no cases have been reported in the Republic of South Sudan and in Angola since June 2009 and July 2011, respectively. In the other two, Chad geographically restricted polio in the second half of the year and cases plummeted in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, after aggressive response to extensive outbreaks in early 2011. All of the eight outbreaks recorded in previously polio-free countries were successfully stopped, all but one within six months.

On the other side of the scales, the three remaining endemic countries witnessed an unexpected and serious upsurge of polio. In Nigeria and Pakistan, the continued circulation of two wild poliovirus serotypes – and a vaccinederived poliovirus in the former – had the ripple effect of international spread to two neighbours. In Afghanistan, the number of cases also increased, with the national programme unable to reach enough children to stop outbreaks in the insecure Southern Region. At the end of 2011, the three endemic countries were off-track for eradicating polio.

I was just discussing this on G+ where it was claimed that Billy boy has wiped out Polio in the third world. To which I said, Uh, No.

Bill Gates has temporarily suppressed Polio in certain parts of the third world and helped sell it out in the process. In order to get vaccinations you have to provide strong IP protection to Big Pharma. So strong that if your people are dying and you make the medication to save them instead of buying it because you can't afford it that the WTO will end up owning your asshole. Meanwhile, they're not going to get into every nation, which is what it actually takes to eradicate a disease. Instead they are lending a false sense of security while creating a ticking time bomb.

The drive to eradicate polio around the world is sponsored by the WTO, the CDC and Rotary International (oops, I just checked and now Unicef has been added). The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is a big donor, contributing at least $1 billion, but they do not call the shots. Further, polio vaccines are not protected by IP laws, you might want to google Salk and Sabin, or even just visit the polio eradication web site. How you got so misinformed I have no idea, but you really should at least conduct a simple fact search on the internet before putting your online name against such poppycock.

Your (his?) claim that "There is no convincing scientific evidence that mass inoculations can be credited with eliminating any childhood disease" is refuted here and here, the latter of which links is an anti-vaccine site.
this link gives references to more scientific studies. And this link also responds to your claims.

And, it's blazingly obvious that smallpox, pertussis, and polio have responded to vaccine regimes. In areas that lacked polio vaccine, polio cases continued. When those areas began to receive the vaccine through WHO (including Europe), the cases reduced or stopped altogether. Case closed.

Vaccination also fits well with the established mechanism of disease resistance. Those who have received vaccination show an increased level of antibodies to the disease vaccinated against; the antibodies are the proteins used by white cells to identify and then destroy the invading pathogens.

I recommend getting your information from medical journals and sites instead of scare websites.

And if you have a child, PLEASE get your vaccination information from repuatable sources.

I'm sorry, all medical "science" does is stumble around in circles until they land on top of something remotely approaching the truth.

Are we talking about the same medical science that eradicated smallpox (a sickness that killed up to 40% of the afflicted and caused the death of about 2 million people in only in the year 1967)? The same medicine that reduced the cases of polio in the world from 350000 in 1988 to 759 in 2005 (till now)?

I'm sorry, but your complaints about margarine and/or eggs don't seem very significant when compared to those successes. So, medicine messes up sometimes. What science doesn't? The whole thing about sciences is that established beliefs are challenged again and again, and, when found faulty, they get replaced. Medicine is more exposed to distrust: few care whether fire is caused by an exothermic oxidation reaction or by phlogiston leaving the burning log; but when their health is in the balance, people get very interested. And I agree that many medical practitioners and researchers could do with learning better statistic and experimental methods. But let's not discard the whole thing because it can't give us exact guidance on margarine.

The UN may have its problems, but it does succeed sometimes.

Have you ever heard of the World Health Organization, a part of the UN? They are working hard to eradicate polio, which is a terrible disease, and things are looking good so far.

Do you still think the UN has been useless for the last 40 years?

The United Nations is a big organization. Under its umbrella are both the World Health Organization and the International Telecommuncations Union, among many others. Unsurprisingly, they have different mandates. Their tasks are not mutually exclusive and each organization focuses on its own areas of expertise. In the private sector, does the CEO tell the IT department to design a new advertising campaign when sales are down?