After no reported cases of wild polio for 19 weeks, vaccination efforts boosted at last endemic spots in Pakistan and Afghanistan
The world is “tantalisingly close” to eradicating polio – with no confirmed cases of wild polio anywhere so far this year. But experts warn that vaccination efforts – and funding – must not falter if the world is to rid itself of a human infectious disease for the second time in history, after smallpox.
There have been no reported cases of wild polio infection in people for the last 19 weeks. Figures from the World Health Organization reveal that the last confirmed cases were on the borders of Pakistan and Afghanistan in October and September 2023 respectively; these are the last nations on Earth where polio is endemic.
“To have gone 19 straight weeks … is a long period to go without a single case, that’s why there is some hope [of eradication],” Gordon McInally, president of Rotary International, a founding partner in the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI), told the Observer. “All of us who are involved in this, every week we get an email giving us the updated figures … and every week when I click open that email my heart rate goes up until I see the number in the hope that it will be zero and not one, or worse. But we take it week by week.”
Anti-vaxxers: “NOT ON OUR WATCH!! MORONS ASSEMBLE!”
“Wild Polio” is almost eradicated, not the polio caused by the oral vaccine lol
https://www.science.org/content/article/first-polio-cases-linked-new-oral-vaccine-detected-africa
That’s a wrong take, the vaccine works even better than expected. They expected 30 to 40 cases like this over 600 million doses. They got 2 events that caused 7 cases.
Source: the article you posted
Classic antivax disinformation right here.
You know what causes a LOT more polio than the vaccine? Polio flying around in an unvaccinated population. The oral vaccine reduces your risk of getting polio tremendously.
sourced information is downvoted
Every time. Still a net positive despite the issues involved in live oral vaccines. If you argue otherwise, you’re being contrarian.
Sourced information downvoted because it’s not relevant and it’s arguably potentially harmful. Two good reasons to downvote something imo.
The source is only one piece of the puzzle, and it’s a piece often shown to mislead people.
I thought I was clear in my attempt at blindsiding that user by first defending them and then disagreeing with them in both substance and spirit. My b
