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posted by janrinok on Wednesday August 17 2016, @07:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the we-CAN-blame-the-terrorists dept.

The government of Nigeria today launched a massive vaccination campaign in the northern state of Borno in response to news that two children there had been paralyzed by wild-type polio virus. [...] Much of Borno is under control of the ruthless terrorist group Boko Haram, vaccinators have been unable to reach hundreds of thousands of children, and the insurgency has disrupted surveillance for the virus, which appears to have been circulating undetected for years.

[...] CDC scientists quickly sequenced viral isolates from the two cases. Both viruses are closely related to one last seen in Borno in 2011, suggesting that polio has been circulating undetected there for 5 years.

Based on the small percent of polio infections that result in paralytic disease, the estimated number of people infected with poliovirus in the region would be between 200-2000.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/08/polio-reappears-nigeria-triggering-massive-response
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis#Signs_and_symptoms


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  • (Score: 2) by Arik on Wednesday August 17 2016, @10:30PM

    by Arik (4543) on Wednesday August 17 2016, @10:30PM (#389339) Journal
    "Slavery was not introduced by white people - it probably came with Islam. "

    No it predated Islam by millenia. One of the earliest surviving records of law - the Code of Hammurabi - assumes it and implies it was already a very old institution even then. That's somewhere around 2500 years before Mohammed, bud. It was practiced in that region continuously for at least ~4k years before being abolished just this last century, and in all likelihood that's probably just a small tail because there was no need to invent writing before slavery. Warfare in the ancient world routinely involved the taking of slaves.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @07:19AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 18 2016, @07:19AM (#389512)

    Original AC here.

    I meant introduction to West Africa, and in particular Nigeria, not as a concept. Obviously, the ancient Egyptians had slavery
    at the time of Moses, , and it was not new then, although it is generally agreed the pyramids were not built by slaves
    - on account of finding payroll records for some of the workers (on clay tables, not punched cards).

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday August 18 2016, @06:31PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Thursday August 18 2016, @06:31PM (#389679) Journal

    You are probably understating the case. Slavery isn't a universal primitive custom, but it seems extremely widespread, which LOTS of variation. To assert that it didn't previously exist in Nigeria you would need to prove it, because the presence seems to be the default condition. I'm not aware that the Inuit kept slaves, or the Tibetans. This could be ignorance on my part, or it could be that the living conditions were so severe that slaves couldn't be supported. Or it could just not have been the custom, There were places were it wasn't. In those places they tended to kill rather than enslave prisoners of war.

    As to how old the custom is... I doubt that it preceded agriculture. But it seems to have appeared soon after settlements worth raiding appeared.

    There's also the question of "What's a slave?". The old Greek custom what that anyone with an especially valuable skill should be mutilated so that he couldn't seek his fortune elsewhere. I'm not sure whether that is or isn't slavery. I believe the Celts also practiced the same custom, it may have been widespread, and it's just that I'm ignorant of its existence elsewhere. And in that case it could extend back into the Neolithic.

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