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posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday August 12 2015, @01:56PM   Printer-friendly
from the but-look-what-fdr-did-with-polio dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes:

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.


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @08:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 12 2015, @08:48PM (#221911)

    I worked closely with two research groups that were amazingly segregated along Moslem/Hindu lines.

    ...

    It was mind boggling to deal with two groups of PhD and postdoc level (highly educated and highly intelligent) people that were united only in their compete disdain for the other.

    That is the inevitable result of segregation. When groups don't rub shoulders with each other on a regular basis it is very easy for suspicion to take root because there is no process to dispel it. When they interact with each other on a daily basis they are forced to recognize the fundamental truth that they are regular people, just like themselves.

    FYI, at best the word 'moslem' is an anachronism. It's like saying 'negro.' Stick to 'muslim.'

  • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Wednesday August 12 2015, @09:55PM

    by Hartree (195) on Wednesday August 12 2015, @09:55PM (#221949)

    "That is the inevitable result of segregation"

    I disagree.

    Many times groups that have little to do with each other have little knowledge of each other don't feel much either way. Now, when segregation is imposed, it usually has quite bad effects.

    Other times, groups that by whatever fate are forced to regularly deal with each other in bad circumstances develop deep hatreds.

    Bigotry can develop in either case, but it's not inevitable.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:53AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 13 2015, @01:53AM (#222066)

      > Many times groups that have little to do with each other have little knowledge of each other don't feel much either way.

      Little knowledge of each other is different than segregation. Two countries on different continents aren't likely to have much of an opinion about each other.

      > Other times, groups that by whatever fate are forced to regularly deal with each other in bad circumstances develop deep hatreds.

      Examples? And what exactly is 'bad circumstances?' Sounds like a weasel word to sound like you are disputing the point when you are actually just cherry-picking.

      • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Thursday August 13 2015, @03:52AM

        by Hartree (195) on Thursday August 13 2015, @03:52AM (#222106)

        There's not much I can say that you like, is there? You don't like my terminology, though I've used it on occasion with the Muslims (to use the term you prefer) I deal with on a daily basis. Though, I must admit usually use Muslim. Here I happened to use the other. I work in a chemistry department at a university with a large number of south Asian and Arab grad students and they haven't corrected me. If it was that offensive, I would have thought they might have. Perhaps it's just my ignorance and failure to notice. *shrug*

        I think you're confusing the way I was using segregated to mean things like the official policies that for example the US and South Africa had. I was simply meaning the two groups had no crossover among them along Indian/Pakistani lines. I should have been more clear. That said, the antipathy seems to predate the separation.

        As to your request for an example: Rwandan Tutsis and Hutus. Though different tribes, they shared a common language and dealt with each other regularly. There was a fair bit of grievance over perceived Tutsi privilege and wish to re-impose the Tutsi monarchy, but as far as I know there was no official segregation and they lived among each other in many towns. Now, I'm not Rwandan and have only limited familiarity with Rwanda and perhaps you're Rwandan, or knowledgeable about the country. So I could be all wet there as well.

        My problem was when you said it was "inevitable". Few things are. More often, I see hatreds coming from different groups having to fight over resources in short supply, or a whole host of other problems. But, in those cases, you have to have at least some interaction for the hatred to build. The segregation comes later after the hatred already exists.

        I wasn't trying to "weasel" as you put it.