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from the but-look-what-fdr-did-with-polio dept.
The New York Times reports some good news from the health front: it's been a year since anybody was diagnosed with polio in Africa.
The goal had seemed tantalizingly close in recent years, but polio always managed to roar back, particularly in Nigeria. Then officials embraced a vigorous new approach to vaccination and surveillance in that country, hiring thousands of community "mobilizers" to track down the unvaccinated, opening operations centers nationwide to track progress and seeking out support from clerics and tribal chiefs.
The result has been remarkable.
The last African case of polio was detected in Somalia on Aug. 11, 2014, the final sign of an outbreak with its roots in Nigeria — the one country where the virus had never been eradicated, even temporarily. But the last case in Nigeria was recorded on July 24, 2014.
According to Wikipedia, there were 416 cases worldwide in 2013, down from 350,000 in 1988. Since the polio virus only infects humans, this means that total eradication of the disease is now within reach.
The bad news is, polio still exists in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and we have the CIA and the Taliban to thank for that. In 2011, while looking for Osama bin Laden, the CIA used an immunization campaign as a cover. When this news came out, it reinforced an already widespread belief that vaccines are a Western conspiracy to sterilize Moslems. This means that a lot of people in the region are now either avoiding immunization, or shooting at health workers.
(Score: 2) by ikanreed on Wednesday August 12 2015, @03:38PM
Yes. I agree. But it sure-as-hell gives them credibility on that message that we didn't want them to have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @08:37PM
> Yes. I agree. But it sure-as-hell gives them credibility on that message that we didn't want them to have.
Fundamentally all anti-vaxxers are anti-vaxxers because of a lack of trust. It doesn't matter if it is taliban in caves or millionaire millennial moms in Bel-Air mansions. It all comes down to distrust of the motives of organizations providing the vaccines. So when the CIA co-opted the vaccine program they 'confirmed' all those unproven suspicions.