India Frees Itself of Polio

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Posted by samzenpus on Sunday January 12, 2014 @07:03PM from the wiped-out dept.

An anonymous reader writes "It's been three years since the last recorded polio case in India and health officials hope to officially certify India polio free in the next few weeks. 'Hamid Jafari, director of the WHO's polio-eradication campaign, says the agency's ambitious quest to stop all polio transmission by the end of 2014 is now within reach. If that is achieved, and no new cases crop up for three years, polio—like smallpox—will be officially banished from the planet. "India was one of the most important sources" from where the virus spread to other countries, said Dr. Jafari.'"

23 of 309 comments (clear)

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Excellent! by jones_supa · 2014-01-12 19:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

These are fantastic news!
1. Re:Excellent! by Bite+The+Pillow · 2014-01-12 19:09 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  All it took was a single country to do the needful.
But vaccinations give you autism by Swampash · 2014-01-12 19:13 · Score: 5, Funny

Jenny McCarthy wouldn't lie to me!
it'll be back by bloodhawk · 2014-01-12 19:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

Given the epidemic of stupid parents that refuse to immunise children nowadays it should not be long till many of the old virus's and diseases rear their ugly heads again.
1. Re:it'll be back by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2014-01-12 19:31 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Given the epidemic of stupid parents that refuse to immunise children nowadays it should not be long till many of the old virus's and diseases rear their ugly heads again.
  I wouldn't call this 'good' news; but polio is sufficiently unpleasant to send your basic chickenshit first world antivaxxer running screaming to the nearest vaccination location (for most childhood diseases for which vaccines are available, you aren't helping your odds by playing at anti-vax; the serious disease effects are still somewhat more common than the vaccine side effects; but polio is a genuinely nasty customer).
  
  Thankfully it has no animal vectors (of any note in the wild, I'm sure you can buy a mouse model or something that is susceptible in the lab) so it mostly hangs out in areas so remote or underdeveloped that sheer logistical difficulty keeps vaccination efforts sporadic.
  
  The one nasty anti-vax angle with polio is, I'm ashamed to say, pretty much our fault: The CIA came up with a clever ruse to do some DNA gathering under the guise of a vaccination program (one for hepatitis B), and the subsequent revelation of this fact has not done much to quell the 'zOMG vaccines are a western and/or zionist conspiracy against muslims!!!' rumor mongering present in certain areas.
2. Re:it'll be back by SuricouRaven · 2014-01-12 19:59 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  The old terrors of disease have been eradicated in developed countries for so long that even the cultural memory is fading. People do not fear a disease they know absolutely nothing of.
  Just ask people what the symptoms of cholora are. Most of them probably don't know, and that's still endemic in parts of the world.
3. Re:it'll be back by bill_mcgonigle · 2014-01-12 20:03 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  The CIA came up with a clever ruse
  The CIA endangers everybody on the planet with their little game(s) - 'clever' could only be applied superficially.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
4. Re:it'll be back by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · 2014-01-12 21:04 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I hoped that the context of my being ashamed to mention it made it clear how much I didn't approve of putting infectious disease control in the line of fire.
  
  I'd say, though, that you might be more accurate to say that it's a myopically clever plan, rather than a superficially clever one. Within the narrow, barely relevant, context of 'so, we need a DNA sample from a well guarded private compound in a country where most of the locals hate our guts and going through the official channels would mean somebody tipping off our suspect within hours, any ideas?' A fake vaccination program is among the better available answers.
  
  In the broader context of the fact that there's never been a man alive nearly as dangerous as some second rate infectious diseases, it's about the dumbest answer imaginable. (Extra demerits awarded for hampering control of polio, which is right on the edge of being finally eradicated, and for doing so in a region where any remaining infections are atypically likely to spread via the more downmarket Hajj trips to assorted other areas where vaccination programs are nontrivial).
  
  Somehow, none of this is terribly out of character for the CIA, unfortunately.
5. Re:it'll be back by Jason+Levine · 2014-01-13 02:29 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  This is definitely the biggest problem with vaccines. Their very success is their biggest weakness. As people don't personally remember diseases like measles, mumps, whooping cough, etc, they mentally minimize the severity of it. Whooping cough? Sounds like you just have a bad cough for a week or two and then you're fine, right? Then they hear FUD about vaccines that leads to them mentally overestimating the risk of the vaccines. Before you know it you have a person who is thinking of injecting their child with this horrible mix of highly dangerous chemicals just to prevent their child from maybe coughing for a few days. They make the perfectly rational (in their mind, given their flawed assumptions) decision to forego vaccinations.
  Sadly, the people who suffer are children like Dana Elizabeth McCaffery who die because they were too young to get the vaccine or people who have valid medical reasons for not getting the vaccine (immune system issues, allergies, etc). These people rely on the rest of us keeping herd immunity up. As the anti-vax movement grows, herd immunity breaks down and more people will die. The good news is that, as more people die, the anti-vax movement should be self-limiting. Who's going to seriously listen to Jenny McCarthy railing about vaccines if a hundred thousand people come down with measles? The bad news is that many, many people will get sick and either die or suffer permanent injury from vaccine-preventable diseases before this happens.
  
  --
  My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
It is still a tough fight ahead by crabel · 2014-01-12 19:27 · Score: 5, Informative

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.
Fantastic by symbolset · 2014-01-12 19:27 · Score: 4, Interesting

Great job on the part of India, the Gates foundation, and all involved. For polio to be eradicated forever would be a great thing.

--
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Good on them! by Okian+Warrior · 2014-01-12 19:30 · Score: 5, Interesting

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.
1. Re:Good on them! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-12 20:17 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  The US and other western countries have done this for quite some time now (15-20 years in California that I know of), particularly for monitoring drug consumption of the population as a whole. I'm not sure if the resulting information is made readily available to the public, but there is a government agency out there somewhere collecting this information and using it for something important enough to substantiate the costs involved.
  Source: One of my clients engineers the big compressors that are used to separate waste in sewage plants. Once separated, samples are taken and tested for various compounds.
  They also engineer subsystems that are designed specifically to collect 'unintentional waste of reasonable value' - also known as jewelry. Your wedding ring that went down the shower drain? It didn't get dumped into the ocean. It's most likely that your local sewage plant found it and melted it down for the value of the metal and gems. I found out about this something like ten years ago, and that year my local plant had gained over $400k from reclaimed jewelry. So it seems that sewage treatment really is a dirty business.
Meanwhile, in Syria... by Y-Crate · 2014-01-12 19:47 · Score: 4, Informative

The WSJ:

There also have been recent outbreaks in the Horn of Africa and Syria, although there are signs that those cases will soon be mopped up.
NPR:

The World Health Organization has declared a polio emergency in Syria.
After being free of the crippling disease for more than a decade, Syria recorded 10 confirmed cases of polio in October. Now the outbreak has grown to 17 confirmed cases, the WHO said last week. And the virus has spread to four cities, including a war-torn suburb near the capital of Damascus.
The Syrian government has pledged to immunize all Syrian children under age 5. But wartime politics is getting in the way. And the outbreak is expected to grow.
"Actually, it is spreading quickly," says Dr. Mohammed Al Saad in Gaziantep, Turkey, near the northern border of Syria. There are now more than 60 suspected cases, he says, with new ones reported each day.
Not so fast ! by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-12 20:14 · Score: 4, Informative

Next door to India, Polio is making a come back.
Same thing also happening in Nigeria, as well as in Mali.
The common thread in the three locations that is helping Polio making a revival is Islam.
Yes, Islam is helping to make Polio a permanent fixture to the human race.
In Pakistan, they actually KILL health workers trying to eradicate Polio. Same thing happen in Nigeria, where Boko Haram has threaten (and sometimes kill) people trying to stop the spread of Polio.
1. Re:Not so fast ! by viperidaenz · 2014-01-12 20:45 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Nothing to do with Al Quaeda
  http://archive.indianexpress.com/news/cleric-says-polio-vaccination-unislamic-warns-of-jihad-against-docs/961503/
2. Re:Not so fast ! by rvw · 2014-01-12 21:10 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  Yes, Islam is helping to make Polio a permanent fixture to the human race.
  The former two catholic popes did similar stuff with condoms and HIV in Africa and South America. I hope this one has more common sense.
3. Re:Not so fast ! by shutdown+-p+now · 2014-01-12 21:24 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  From TFA:
  "Religious leaders were persuaded to join the effort. "The calls that went out to the Muslim faithful every Friday contained reminders to take children to the immunization booths," said Mr. Kapur of Rotary International. "These were the people initially most skeptical of the vaccines but, once convinced, they became our biggest agents of change."
  So it's not Islam in general that's anti-polio. Indeed, you don't get those craziness in any Muslim culture with well-educated populace.
  The people who are killing health workers administering vaccines in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria are not just Muslims. They are Salafi, an extremely fundamentalist Muslim sect that espouses strict Koranic literalism and advocates for a return to the practices of the "original Islam" (which, basically, translates to society and culture frozen as it was in the times of Muhammad). Taliban, Boko Haram, al-Qaeda, Caucasus Emirate etc - these are all Salafi.
4. Re:Not so fast ! by Jah-Wren+Ryel · 2014-01-13 00:21 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  One of the reasons for that was some IDIOT in the CIA apparently using a polio vaccination program as a cover for a covert operation in Pakistan.
  
  It was actually hep-b vax and it was specifically intended to get info on bin laden in abbotobad. Not clear if it was helpful or not.
  http://www.salon.com/2013/01/11/the_fake_vaccination_scheme_absent_from_the_bin_laden_hunt_debates/
  
  --
  When information is power, privacy is freedom.
5. Re:Not so fast ! by ShanghaiBill · 2014-01-13 03:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  Nothing to do with Al Quaeda
  AQ is a big part of it, and for GOOD REASON. The United States used health workers, including people administering polio vaccine, to collect intelligence against AQ and the Taliban. Some AQ people were killed as a result. The US has openly admitted doing this. They did it in Abbottadad, to try to local Osama bin Laden (the film "Zero Dark Thirty" showed health workers collecting intelligence). If you don't want health workers targeted in a war, then don't use them to target others.
Re:At constant risk by Sockatume · 2014-01-12 21:09 · Score: 4, Funny

Criticises religion, "literally" places blame on satan. :)

--
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I survived polio! by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2014-01-13 00:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

I mean I am still alive and polio is (almost) dead!
I contracted polio in rural India when I was about 5, 10 years after Salk's vaccine was deployed all over the USA. I had switched schools about six times in k-12, (civil servant dad posted to all the distant corners of the realm). In almost every class, in every school I had another victim as classmate. That is anecdotal evidence with the survivor bias too. How many had died? How many did not even attend school?
Well, I am glad the scourge has been eliminated in India. Hope the fundie clerics do not stand in the way of complete eradication. It is very disheartening the fundie clerics and the Haj pilgrimage is re-introducing it again in far flung regions of the world. If polio found an able adversary in science, it has found a reliable ally in the form of Muslim fundamentalists.

--
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Don't worry... by Charliemopps · 2014-01-13 01:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

Don't worry, Jenny McCarthy will be over with a horde of uneducated soccer moms to fuck it all up for you soon enough.