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You are here: Home / Foreign Affairs / Actual Good News: ‘Wild’ Polio Eradicated in Africa

Actual Good News: ‘Wild’ Polio Eradicated in Africa

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There has been considerable concern that the current COVID-19 pandemic would set back efforts to control other chronic ‘pandemics’ — not just polio, but tuberculosis, HIV, malaria, et al. So this is particularly good news, right now!


Reader Interactions

35Comments

  1. 1.

    different-church-lady

    At the rate we’re going we’re going to have to eradicate it again here in the good ol’ USA.

  2. 2.

    Martin

    @different-church-lady: I doubt that, but I do worry that with schools being remote that the gatekeeping function for childhood vaccines is falling apart. A few semesters shouldn’t matter that much, but much longer will become a problem.

  4. 4.

    geg6

    I just watched a segment on the local CBS station about something being done with genetics of mosquitoes that they think may wipe out malaria, dengue fever and some other horrid disease that I can’t remember.  Lots of good news out there but you have to look hard for it these days.

  6. 6.

    WaterGirl

    @Cheryl Rofer: I thought we weren’t supposed to get the flu shots until October because if you get them earlier the shot runs out of gas while the flu is still prevalent?

    We talked about this when Raven got his flu shot early, and I only know – what I think I know – from the conversation that ensued after that.

  7. 7.

    Miss Bianca

    This is amazing news. I follow the polio eradication efforts with great interest, because years ago when I lived in Chicago, one of the temp jobs I held in grad school was cataloging the video library at the Rotary International headquarters in Evanston. Unbeknownst to me at the time, one of Rotary International’s signature efforts was (and remains) polio eradication, a fact I became familiar with after weeks of spooling through videotapes of clubs all over the world doing vaccination drives. I remember thinking back in the 90s that  polio was going to be licked worldwide before the end of the 20th century, in no small part because of Rotary’s efforts.

    Turned out to be a bit longer than that. But maybe before *mid* -21st century? A girl can dream…

  8. 8.

    Yutsano

    @WaterGirl: The doctor I just saw Wednesday said to wait until the end of September. So yeah she agrees with the fully into the post autumnal equinox theory.

  12. 12.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @WaterGirl: I’m aware of that discussion and will talk to my doctor at my physical in October about the possibility of getting another shot in January or February. I’ve always waited until about October in the past, but this year I feel like I should do everything I can to protect myself. Even if I have to pay for another shot, it will be worth it. They’re not that expensive.

  13. 13.

    Fair Economist

    Flu rates remain extraordinarily low. Only seven cases in the whole country last week, many times less than pre-Covid lows. With people taking precautions against Covid, we might well not even have a flu season this year. I was hoping sone strains of flu would go extinct, but that’s not happening. Still, I would wait at least until cases start rising to get vaccinated.

  14. 14.

    narya

    And some good-ish news on the HIV front, at least in my neck of the woods: we’ve been sending out “prevention” kits (condoms & lube) to folks who need them, we’ve been able to keep folks on PrEP, and we’ve developed a couple of at-home HIV testing protocols. We also do “rapid start” (getting folks on meds the day of diagnosis or very soon thereafter). We’re only one organization, but one of the ways we’re doing good work is by being adaptable (event-based testing won’t work because no events? let’s figure out how to do at-home testing)–and we’ve also been able to use our contact-tracing skills on Covid.

  15. 15.

    Roger Moore

    @Fair Economist:

    With people taking precautions against Covid, we might well not even have a flu season this year.

    This is what I was hoping.  COVID seems to be more infectious than the flu, so the precautions that keep R0 for COVID close to 1 should keep R0 for the flu well below 1.

  16. 16.

    Ohio Mom

    As I think I remember it, only one of the two types of polio vaccines can cause polio, the so-called live vaccine (I think that’s the Sabin version) (The Sabin family lived in Cincinnati, and there is a street named after him here).

    I wonder why the other type was not used in Africa. And can the live vaccine polio virus evolve into a wild virus — could it take off and spread widely?

    Off to Google I go.

  17. 17.

    Cheryl Rofer

    @Ohio Mom: The Sabin vaccine is the live vaccine. The reason it is used broadly instead of the Salk vaccine is that it is easier to administer and to store. The strategy of polio eradication has been to use Sabin until the wild strain is eradicated, and then go to the Salk vaccine for mop-up of the few cases caused by Sabin. Once the wild strain is eradicated, the cases are few enough that they can be tracked and traced. Those who are exposed but not showing symptoms get the Salk vaccine.

  18. 18.

    Ohio Mom

    Thanks Cheryl. Now I am impressed that there is such robust surveillance that the few cases caused by the Sabin vaccine are identified promptly and all those exposed are vaccinated.

    Compare and contrast with our response to Covid…

  20. 20.

    Alex

    @Cheryl Rofer: I think you’re right that it’s largely for logistical reasons. My understanding is that the live vaccine doesn’t require the same “cold chain” of consistent refrigeration, which is hard to achieve in parts of the developing world.

  21. 21.

    Alex

    One of the reasons I am so cautious about Covid is that my dad has post-polio syndrome. This is different from lingering or permanent effects of polio— it’s a new fatigue, weakness, or return of paralysis decades after a person apparently recovered from polio. Motor neurons get burned out from compensating for damage.

    They used to think it was rare, but now it looks like almost all survivors of paralytic polio will develop it to some degree if they live long enough. It comes on around 50 years or more after the initial infection. With a new pathogen like this coronavirus, there is no way of knowing what the effects are that far down the line.

  22. 22.

    Lapassionara

    @Alex: My sister has this. Polio at 3, mostly recovered but for some leg muscle atrophy. This by 6 or 7. Then, wham, in her 60’s.

    Polio was the scourge of our childhood. It is hard for me to be patient with those who want to opt out of vaccines because reasons.

  23. 23.

    WaterGirl

    @Alex: I’m really sorry to hear that about your dad.  And anyone who had polio, really.

    Yeah, part of what makes COVID-19 so scary, besides all the obvious here-and-now stuff, is the unknown.  This virus is a Tump-level bad actor.

  25. 25.

    Ruckus

    I personally know 4 people who had/have polio. I, like many others on this here blog were alive before the first polio vaccine.

    2 of my friends moms, a girl my age I went to school with from elementary school through HS and a woman my age who lives in my complex who lived about 5 miles from me, that I met when I moved in here, about 1 1/2 yrs ago. The girl I went to school with came to the 10 yr reunion without braces or crutches. I talked to the woman I know from here and she said she got to that point, got married, had kids and an actual life for some time, but she’s now back in a chair and some days wears a brace.

  26. 26.

    Chetan Murthy

    ISTR that part of why Af-Pak has trouble with polio, is our doing: we used polio vaccination as a cover for our agent to root around in the ‘hood where bin Laden was hding, and in the process spooked people in the region away from all public health measures.  I’m not saying that was a wise conclusion on their part, but we shoulda known better.  Feh.

    I remember getting the sugar cube in elementary school, then something else o my arm — a sort of surface infusion (maybe it wasn’t for polio, but that’s my memory) — on a trip to India.  Yeah, any fucker who thinks that these public health measures are a bad thing, can suck this here sperm whale’s dick.

  27. 27.

    Ruckus

    @Lapassionara:

    The only vaccine I opt out of is the flu. Every time I’ve had the flu vaccine I’ve been sicker than catching the flu in the wild, which hasn’t happened in a long time. And yes I understand the flu vaccine is different every year. But I get sick for a week or more and with a high fever, 104-105. And I spent 9 days in hospital with a fever of 105 from vaccines back in 1970. The the fever broke after 8 days and I recovered rather quickly. I got I think 6 or 7 vaccines in under 2 min the day before, so I have no idea which caused this. Boot camp was fun. I don’t like opting out but my experience has caused me to be wary.

  28. 28.

    Jean

    My younger sister had polio. She was lucky not to have lumbar polio which required iron lungs. She had a resurgence of weakness in one leg some years ago. A casual acquaintance revealed recently that she’s an anti-vaxer, saying you’d have to hold her down to give her a vaccine. Anyway, she thinks she’s been “doing research” for years, meaning to me, she reads closed loop sites, each one linking to the other whacko theories. Don’t get me started on what people think research is. One of her rants was about polio vaccines causing polio.

    I remember and recently looked up the time period where there was a mix-up at one pharmaceutical lab after the vaccines were being widely administered. All vaccines were halted, and then they discovered what had gone wrong. It was ONE lab. And vaccines were again administered. My sister had the only treatment available before the vaccine at the time she contracted it, penicillin. She was allergic to it. The Salk vaccine became available very soon after she became ill. She was under 5 years old and did spend several months in and out of hospitals.

  29. 29.

    Ruckus

    @Alex:

    The woman I wrote about in #25 is like your dad. Led a rather decent life after a childhood of suffering and is now back in a chair. She’s back in wheel chair and has been for a while. She’s looking for a mobility scooter and I just found out about this yesterday so I’ve been looking for her, she doesn’t do internet.

    On that note, does anyone know squat about mobility scooters?

  30. 30.

    Ohio Mom

    Ruckus, you are part of the reason I get a flu vaccine, to help protect those who can’t. Also, I had a bad flu in my mid-thirties and was miserably sick for over three weeks. Never again.

    I don’t know anything about mobility scooters but I would check to see what Medicare will pay for first. I imagine there is a fair amount of upselling with them, old people often being such easy marks.

  31. 31.

    Alex

    @Ruckus: My dad got a mobility scooter and really likes it. Medicare paid for it as durable medical equipment. The vendors will walk you through the Medicare stuff. It plugs in to charge, and it comes apart to fit in the back of a car so you don’t need a lift van. One of the counterintuitive things about post-polio is that you can weaken your muscles by over exercising, so a scooter is a good way to avoid situations that would be very fatiguing. He used to try to just use the ones provided by stores and such but they are not reliable.

    Of course, now dad hasn’t been able to go anywhere since February, but he uses the scooter to check his mail.

  34. 34.

    Ruckus

    @Alex:

    Thanks.

    I’ve found a lot of them. Some look really, really crappy. And some are way over priced. Pretty much like any modern product that people need. This woman seems to have a payment concept so I think it’s a matter of finding one that fits what she thinks it’s worth and meets her needs.

  35. 35.

    JAFD

    @Ruckus: I live in a ‘senior citizens’ building’, lot of folks with the scooters, will ask around for opinions when I get chance.

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